4.0 Guessing really, a "dead cat bounce" from last year, but not above the former record.

Are we seeing more "century breaks (>100,000 km^2)" this year than ever before (on JAXA, at least)? The "ups and downs" of this year look qualitively different than other years. There seem to be more large daily melts, and more smaller ones as well. Or is that just a new satellite, or a policy shift by the scientists?

And then there's this: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/08/11/294403/arctic-ice-thinning-4-times-faster-than-predicted-by-models-semi-stunning-m-i-t-study-finds/

Greg, Unless my old eyes are deceiving me, another lead is opening up North of Ellesmere Island. It is big enough to be visible on MODIS images, though not on Cryosphere Today. Any thoughts?

Sorry, in my last post I said PIPS when I meant the new model pictured above.

What I don't figure is that just north of the Canadian Archipelago, if you look at the Cryosphere maps or MODIS images, you will see melting, even open water, where the ice is at its thickest according to PIPS. Does this mean the PIPS model is out of date? Or is something else happening?

The map does not show the Baltic - I think that is Novaya Zemlya where the ice is at 2m thickness. You can just see the top of Scandanavia at the bottom of the map, above & to the left of the letters CPOM etc. I think I also boobed above ... of course the ice should be thicker in March because that is the maximum.

Compared with Neven's analysis is March, this map does show thicker ice in comparable places - but this map is earlier, for Jan-Feb. http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2011/04/ice-thickness-models.html However, I take Daniel's point that it is early days. Great to see this product .. I have been looking forward to this for a year. Looks like a winner!

Great blog, great times ... Thanks for making it such fun.

Thanks for the Ronnie O'Sullivan video. Never saw it before. Brilliant!

PIPS is up again with most of the arrows gone into reverse or disappeared. No exit at Fram Strait. I guess that's bad for compactification?

Like eveyone else, I've taken note of teh uptick. However I notice on the University of Cologne weather chart that High Pressure seems to be on the way back into the Arctic, and the PIPS displacement arrows are increasing again. Does this mean a few decent days of compactification coming up?

"... clouds on the horizon". Very tantalizing, Neven, do tell.

~59,000 gone last night, though there may be a correction to that! If this continues, extent will drop below the 5 million km^2 mark tonight. And it looks like it will. UofB chart of the rate of decline shows it upping slightly. My own "personal" prediction of 5.1 is well shot :))

Jon, Wow!

Well I am confused - blame my inexperience. Both the CT and UofB maps are showing a hell of a lot blue - areas where ice concentration is below 50%. There is as much now as there ever was. That ice "peninsula" in the East Siberian Sea looks like it could completely disintegrate. I notice also that at http://www.meteo.uni-koeln.de/meteo.php?show=En_We_We there are dominating high pressure areas and the Arctic temperatures are warmer than average for this time of year. But low pressure and high winds might have a bigger impact. What does it all presage? On the figures, it seems that the fat lady has cleared her throat at least, but the maps make me surmise there is still some way to go in the plot before she bursts into song. Apologies for the extended metaphor at the end (blame Neven for that!).

"So Goddard has gone solo. . . maybe he and Watts had creative differences?" Yes, one was creative, the other was different. Oi!

Frank, I used the one on Tamino's blogpost, which is titled "June Report": http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/summer-ice/#more-2928 Excluding the outlier, there are 15 predictions. I just looked at the one 6 to 8 as a rough guide. There may have been other predictions before or since.

Ok, funny bit over. Looking at the expert SEARCH predictions, and ignoring the wild outlier, the median prediction is in the range 4.9 to 5.1, which looks like it might be fairly accurate. Neven is right, 4.95 is better PR than 5 - PR is not something I am comfortable with in science, but it may jolt people that little more.

"Steve Goddard has never been identified. Wouldn't you think that Steve Goddard and Anthony Watts are the same person?" That makes it even funnier !!!

Q: Where do Anthony Watts and Steve Goddard meet for a drink after work? A: The Error Bar Apologies - couldn't resist it. :)))

2010 has just about passed 2009 on the UofBremen site metric. Given Jaxa is at 5.51 million km^2, I will experience a bit of schadenfreude over the next 24 hours as WUWT's "prediction" of 5.5 as the minimum extent is passed. No doubt, the 2009 mark will fall soon after. Of course, the Arctic is still in recovery mode!! :)) With 28 days or so left until the end of the melt season, there is plenty of shrinkage left.

Lord Soth, Thanks for that explanation of the dynamics of Arctic ice melt.

Lord Soth, Are you saying that the current High Pressure over the Arctic is inhibiting the melt? Thanks

I notice the DMI index of 30% ice extent has plunged downwards. It was in the same ballpark as 2005 and 2006, but now has rejoined its "sisters" 2007, 2008 and 2009. I watch U of Bremen closely - its morning update (European time) gives a good idea of what the melt will be the following morning. However, their charts could do with more tickmarks and horizontal gridlines. The change/ month chart confuses me a bit - can someone explain it to me? Is it a rollup of the change over the last month plotted by day? 2010 change/ month seems to have been almost constant since June.