In an earlier post I read that the CT area data pointed out that 2012 has broken some 140 daily records. Can anyone tell me how many daily records have been broken on the PIOMAS graph this year? The lines are so distinctly lower each year than the previous that it seems we are almost approaching full 365-day homeruns. Also it might be interesting to publicly talk about the percentage that is lost each year relative to the previous. From this graph http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v224/Chiloe/12_Climate/sea_ice_PIOMAS_min.png for example, one can read that we've seen a 17,5% drop this year. That's like Usain Bolt running the 100m dash in 9,58s one year and in 7,90s the next year.

There seems to be a divide between models and statistics. Is that because models tend to underestimate changes while statistics tend to follow the observed trend? I do think statistics are less reliable in the end game as a large area (+1 million km2) of thin ice might persist well into the 2020's, even though the volume would essentially reach near-zero during the second half of this decade.