2.6 million If the volume continues to fall at the present rate then there will be no ice in 2015 or 2016. The extent will have to accelerate downwards to reach zero at that time, so I expect a reduction of about 1 million this year.

An interesting article, but I would like to see what the models predict when the Arctic ice melts even further. The temperature anomaly near Greenland has been huge recently, so I wondered how unusual it was, and if it had anything to do with the shrinking ice. This answers my question!

The pressure in the Arctic is off the scale for January 19, over 1055hPa across a large area: http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/weather/arcticweather_imagecontainer.php

I enjoyed the video that came up after the first one finished! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ARJK0MWAITM

Collincr, I share your disbelief at what people believe who should know better. A few years ago there was a confrontation between Richard Dawkins and a young-Earth creationist who claimed that evolution contradicts the second law of thermodynamics. He was a professor of thermodynamics! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_McIntosh_%28professor%29

"- Rossby waves seem quite steadfast again, one trough after another positions real bad for the British Isles" You can say that again! Some places have had their wettest September day on record. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19725625

I wish the deniers would learn to sing from the same song sheet instead of putting forward various mutually exclusive claims. They never seem to argue between themselves which one is the truth, and some seem to support several opposing positions at the same time! Will we ever see the ostriches flying in formation? :-)

Travis: "I would look for (1) to be the new skeptic go-to point for the near future." I agree, I have seen several people making the same sort of claim in comments to articles.

The axis has been extended to encompass the new record anomaly, but only to -2.0 million. Will it be enough for this year?

Jim, much of mainland Europe has had very high temperatures (record in Czech Republic) and drought, and is still warmer than normal, including Russia where the wind is now blowing towards the North. In the UK it has been very different, with a very dry start to the year which was cured by the introduction of a hose-pipe ban, when it immediately started to rain heavily until the Olympics!

Looking at the forecast for the next few days, it looks like there will be a lot of warm air flowing from Europe and the Atlantic towards the pole, so i expect a further decline.

"The rest of them need some more Hellfire(TM) weather in their back yards.................." Many years ago the comedian Marty Feldman did a sketch on TV in which he seems to be a rabid hellfire preacher, going on about how "the fire shall encompasseth the Earth" etc, but he ends with "....and the rest of the day will be mainly fine, with a few scattered showers." It somehow seems appropriate to the present situation. Unfortunately I cannot find it on Youtube :-(

I don't think the quadratic curve has any merit because it says that there was no ice in the early 20th century, so it is a very poor fit, as Wipneus pointed out. I also think that we have to look at volume rather than area, because thickness cannot be ignored, and area can change very rapidly as the thickness suddenly goes to zero! I was hoping that the volume this year would be incompatible with either exponential fit or Gompertz so we could eliminate one of them. That does not seem likely to happen, but it looks like being more compatible with exponential. Anyway, I expect we will have a much better indication next year which (if any) is reasonably correct, as the two curves diverge strongly.

I see there is a link to a denialist article in the news links: "Arctic Sea Ice Record Low Is “Broken” - Energy Tribune". I presume this is a mistake.

The decrease in extent from July 1 to Aug 1 was 2.590 million. The decrease from Aug 1 to Aug 30 was exactly the same, so the decline so far this month is more than in July!

The latest volume figure is right on the "expected" value on this graph, as it was at the start of August: https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/_/rsrc/1346345120282/home/piomas/piomas-trnd4-1.png The cyclone seems to have no effect, apart from a small but temporary reduction in ice volume relative to what was "expected". I find that surprising, given the large reduction in area this month.

Whoops! Missed Blackdragon's link.

This just out: "Large volumes of methane - a potent greenhouse gas - could be locked beneath the ice-covered regions of Antarctica, according to a new study. It says this methane could be released into the atmosphere as ice retreats, contributing to climate warming." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19410444

Glenn, I have also noticed that reduction in variability, but it is only in absolute terms. If you look at it in relative terms then I can see nothing significant. The variability should get smaller in absolute terms as the volume decreases, IMO, but the confidence limits on the graph don't do that. So, I do not think there is anything strange going on. https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/_/rsrc/1343965558784/home/piomas/piomas-trnd6.png

"Annual PIOMAS volume maximum and minimum - does a simple graph like that exist?" This is nearly what you want - the monthly averages for April is close to the maximum: https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/_/rsrc/1343965477322/home/piomas/piomas-trnd2.png

There is still the volume data to come, but we won't get that till September. The record, set in 2011, was 4000 cubic Km. At the start of August it was on course for 3000, but it is now likely to be much lower even than that. Any guesses? https://sites.google.com/site/arctischepinguin/_/rsrc/1343965522070/home/piomas/piomas-trnd4-1.png

I find it strange that the second area graph shows no obvious sign of the recent cyclone, while the extent graphs show a large reduction. It seems as if the cyclone merely compacted the ice without actually melting it very much!

Three spelling mistakes - solstice (second para).

Crandles' graph shows that the minimum thickness didn't occur until December at one time. Recently this has been November, but presumably this will occur in September when the ice melts completely, so the graph should continue to change its shape as well as its height.

Actually, 2009 show some signs of change. The maximum is very early compared to previous years, and there is a decline during the summer which is slow but still greater than before.