A few years back I coded an algorithm to compute daily surface melt in Antarctica from microwave sat. data. The NSIDC adopted the code but it isn't live yet.
Until then, I created my own "Antarctica Today" app that'll auto-post replies to this thread.
Daily surface melt extent w/ a 1-day lag.
🧪⚒️🌍
This Peninsula heat wave has definitely turned into *A THING* 🇦🇶❄️💦💦💦
I’ll need to look thru the satellite data to see if we’re breaking any records since 1979. Antarctic surface melt is VERY noisy, we may not be. But this extensive of melt in mid-March is NOT usual. (You see the plot 📈.) 🇦🇶🧪⚒️
Thanks to your updates, I've been looking at SSTa & jet stream role....
having followed Dr. Jennifer Francis's Arctic amplification/jet stream discoveries as of 2011.
SSTa has since taken on a bigger role, as one would expect also for Antarctic.
Context, with a glance back to mid-March 2022 "event."
Yeah that sub-figure SB6.1(d) is from this same dataset, though just for the Wilkes and Adélie region from 2021-22. I wanna look at the Peninsula specifically and also at the whole continent, see how it stacks up. I’ve been busy today and haven’t sat down to make any comparison plots.
If you don’t wanna wait, do a back-of-napkin check yourself. Google “area of the Antarctic ice sheet”, convert this year’s max March “percentage” to km², and compare to that BAMS SoTC 2022 sub-figure you just posted.
That 2022 event was really extraordinary in part b/c just how far South it was.
I just did that (back-of-napkin). 14e6 km² * ~1.15 % ≈ 161,000 km² peak about a week or so ago. Much bigger extent than the 26,000 km² peak from that 2022 event. But also a couple weeks earlier in the year and further north than that March 2022 event in E Antarctica, which really stood out there.
Was thinking about your melt plots this morning, we have a small subproject on atmospheric rivers currently, I may take a look into the trajectory in the NWP models - anything of interest there for you? (We have a 1km Res subdomain set up over peninsula so would be relatively easy to do a few runs)
Hi Dr. Mottram! (We know each other, it's "Ruth" in emails but on social media I'll stick w/ honorifics.)
Maybe? I'm definitely *interested* but am also part of another paper on this topic and am trying limit the number of unpaid collaborations I'm part of. I overwhelm myself easily. We can email!
