Sam and all: The link provided by Sam to the UWash imagery has expired. If you are looking for the current link, go here: http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/ And scroll down to where you see "North Pole View" and immediately under that section is the "250mb wind/height" product that shows the jetstream so nicely.

One of the great things about this blog is that there is so little energy put into complaining or kvetching about the denial-sphere. I'd personally hate to see what could be the most public manifestation of this blog be diminished by what would amount to name calling 'the other side'. Typhoons and Cyclones in the Indian Ocean and West Pacific have person names appropriate to Asia, Hurricanes in the East Pacific have names appropriate to Central America. North Atlantic Hurricanes have names appropriate to North America and the Carribean. Thus I do not think there is anything 'politically correct' about giving Arctic Cyclones names from the languages of Arctic people's, in fact it would fall very much in line the convention and thus, I believe, give the practice added credibility. I will be surprised if the ICC get back to you with a definitive answer Neven, I suspect they will say something like 'Sure, we really don't have a say in it'. I would humbly suggest that a small group of folks here put together some lists of names to use and then submit those to the ICC as well just to see if they have any objections. I really doubt they will, but the gesture will no doubt be appreciated and it will help if someone comes along and tries to use the names against us.

I meant to include a link to a Canadian Inuit dictionary we might be able to use, though I would suggest taking words from all of the indigenous polar peoples. http://www.wordgumbo.com/ea/can/caninu.htm

I would submit that there need not be a difference between Great Arctic Cyclone and Persistent Arctic Cyclone. The purpose as I see it would be to identify a 'season' for the cyclones based on historic data and I think the melt season, with the acknowledgment that this season is Nader a state of upheaval, and then come up with criteria to declare some a cyclone, either by barometric pressure and organization and position with the Arctic Circle. Then we simply start naming them in Alphabetical order as they do with Tropical varieties. I would suggest five lists of names from A-Z perhaps with an indigenous Arctic heritage or based on Arctic places, and with an appended year so we need not worry about debates on 'retiring' names of notable storms since we can propabably all agree that from here on out, they will all be notable. As the first cyclone of the 'season' year appears to be revving up, I propose a name of: Kinaktok-2013 (Kinaktok means Sharp)

4.05 I'm basing this simply on intuition and nothing really concrete aside from the assumption that there will be a recovery after last years big drop.

It is only going to get more and more interesting as things progress. Thank you for another great update.

At risk of feeding the troll... perhaps if you're going to connect the Russian meteor explosion to Arctic sea ice cracking you should investigate whether there was any cracking caused by nuclear detonations of similar magnitudes and similar or lesser distances in the past. I think you will find that if there was a significant link between atmospheric detonations in the kiloton range and Arctic ice fragility, science would have noticed it in the past 60 years.

Tenney: you need a script for that... Ill work on something. Might take me a few days though, got a lot on my plate.

What is the link for that imagery? (In this post) Thanks!

I mostly lurk, but just wanted to say this blog and its regular commenters continue to be simultaneously baffling, fascinating, and terrifying. Thank you, sort of.

Just a thought in relation to the talking points (i know i know)... are these graphs available for the Southern Hemisphere? ...... perhaps I can stare at them for awhile and convince myself it'll all be alright..... Cheers. Chris

We've had a strong ridge of high pressure over us here in the Pacific Northwest of the US/Canada for what seems like forever for this time of year. It's also sending all the sub-tropical (colloquially know here as the Pineapple Express) rain and storm systems into Alaska and northern Canada. I am trying desperately to convince myself that the persistence of this pattern has nothing to do with lack of Arctic sea ice. Someone reassure me please! lol

I'm looking for the tweet now... has he deleted it? When was it tweeted?

Excellent thanks.

quick question (hopefully). What day was the record set in 2007?

On the note of 'this has happened before' indeed it has. I use this handy writing I received in a response from the NSIDC back in 2007. I had asked when the last time it was that the north pole was ice free. ..... (ybp=years before present, CE="Current Era" Gregorian calendar years) 260,000,000-20,000,000 ybp: no sea ice 20,000,000-2,500,000 ybp: possibly some sea ice 2,500,000-130,000 ybp: sea ice during glacial periods, possibly ice-free during interglacials 130,000-100,000 ybp: possibly ice-free during last interglacial 100,000-10,000 ybp: last glacial period, ice-covered year round 10,000-7000 ybp: peak of current interglacial, possibly some ice-free (at least seasonally) years 7,000 ybp - 900 CE: cooling trend, likely sea ice throughout 900 CE - 1300 CE: medieval warm period, possibly some ice-free periods, but unlikely 1300 CE - present: definite year-round ice cover

Never, I just wanted to give you a quick thank you for the link to the MODIS imagery which is exactly what I was searching for. http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/imagery/realtime.cgi Cheers Chris

I'm sorry I've been trying to figure it out for a while now but I have yet to figure out what website these near-real time MODIS images are obtained from. I've been through the MODIS site a million times and have never found these 'tiles' or anything approaching what is here. Could someone provide a direct link to where these are downloaded? Thank you so much Chris