Arctic Ice Close To Minimum?
By Paul Homewood
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Arctic sea ice extent may not quite have reached minimum yet, but indications are that more or less bottomed out. According to NSIDC, extent has only decreased by 48,000 sq km since the start of the month.
DMI show the 15% ice cover above as being well above 2011. The 30% cover, below, also indicates a higher minimum extent than both 2011 and 2008.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/old_icecover.uk.php
Oddly, however, NSIDC are showing a much lower figure for this year, barely above 2011, and well below 2008.
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/data/NH_seaice_extent_nrt.csv
Meanwhile, NORSEX still appear to have problems with their data. Following last week’s data problems, their system went down “for maintenance” for a couple of days. It is now back up, but data for this year only runs up to early August. Fortunately I have kept a copy of their graph as at the 7th September, which confirms the DMI plots, so we can see if they change anything in the meantime.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
Although this year’s minimum is already lower than the last two years, such volatility is not unusual in the Arctic, and is a reflection of weather more than anything else. For instance, the changes from 2000 to 2001, and then 2002 were also substantial. Similar large year on year changes were also common in the 1980’s and 90’s.
Ron Clutz explains here how a large storm system in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas reduced ice extent at the end of August.
As we can see from the DMI chart below, Arctic temperatures throughout the summer have been close to average.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
If the Arctic ice cap carries on not disappearing, t’ll be interesting to follow the fortunes of this cruise in a year’s time..
http://www.crystalcruises.co.uk/OfferDetail.aspx?OG=220
I think its a pause … shall we start saying: “18 days of sea ice decline pause and still counting” (joke!)
Not sure where SunshineHours gets his data , but I like the resolution of his graphs..
Looking at Pauls second graph,
.. wouldn’t it be great fun if 2015 climbed up above the bunch by December. 🙂
The alarmista screeching and wailing would be a pleasure to behold. 🙂
See also:
(University of Bremen, Germany)
And:
The Arctic Sea Ice Volume Anomaly measurements have been recovering since 2012 (see http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1.png):
“The April 2015 volume was 24,200 km3, close to the April 2010 value. The April 2015 volume was 26% below the maximum April ice volume in 1979 and 13% below the 1979-2014 mean, and about 1 standard deviation above the long term trend. The June 2015 volume was 18.500 km3, 900 km3 above to the 2014 June value.” “The long term trend is about -2,800 km3/decade.”
From PIOMAS Arctic Sea Ice Volume Reanalysis (Polar Science Center, Arctic Sea Ice Volume Anomaly).
At http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/
Today MASIE is also showing ice extent rebounding, especially in Beaufort Sea, recently battered by a storm.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/arctic-water-near-max/
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.