The videos from the Transformational Climate Change conference are now available. More over on the forum: http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,865.msg27043.html#msg27043 Very few people understand what it is to live in a 3 degree, 4 degree, 5 degree world and that needs to change!

Continuing my mission to spread the latest words of wisdom from Dame Julia Slingo about her new emphasis on IPCC working groups 2 and 3 rather than 1, here's my report on the UK Met Office's latest climate change conference: http://tinyurl.com/ecoar5 This one was in London on Monday. I didn't go, but I have seen the video recording. Here's an extract: The phrase that comes to mind now is that at last we're into the phase of what I call "actionable science". This means we are in a place where science is mature enough, it's still not there in many respects but we as a global society must start to take action on the basis of that science.

George - I suspect it is clouds you are seeing. Here's NASA Worldview

In the absence of an open thread I'd just like to point out that lots of IPCC co-chairs and vice chairs have recently contributed to a 4.5 hour video and lots of slides now available over on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum: "Transformational Climate Science" Essential viewing for any ASIB reader, not to mention every politician on the planet. All IMHO of course!

The slides from the Transformational Climate Science conference at Exeter University have now been made available. Whilst unfortunately incomplete, they should nonetheless be required reading for every politician on the planet! View the slides from Thursday's presentations. View the slides from Friday's presentations.

In related news, I've just returned home after an astonishing couple of days at the "Transformational Climate Science" conference just down the road from here at Exeter University. More from me in due course, but "selfies" were much in vogue today. Here's one especially for Chris Reynolds: I also asked Dame Julia Slingo if she would care to be in one too, but after a few moments thought she politely declined. A few minutes earlier Dame Julia has suggested that "citizen science will be an incredibly powerful way to document and share the changes going on around us"

@LRC- A recording of the NASA press conference about the WAIS "collapse" http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/47484934 Hat tip to checkmate

Not to mention the need to stabilise lots of new roads and railways built on top of tempafrost: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baffinland_Iron_Mine http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25421967

P.S. There's plenty of open water visible on the Barrow webcam this morning:

@Robert - See also the in depth discussion on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum: http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,778.msg24873.html#msg24873 @Neven - Note from the same thread that two NPEO webcams and O-Buoy #9 have been beaming back pictures for a while now. Here's NPEO #2 for example: A nice looking house indeed! I have a question to ask out of "professional" interest. Will you be installing any energy storage to complement your array of solar PV panels? If so, what sort?!

Moving on to declining area and extent, here's an extract from the Hamburg AMSR2 concentration map, showing the Laptev and East Siberian Seas also looking weak at the moment: and here's the GFS version of the current "Arctic cyclone"

@Chris^2 - The US Navy's ACNFS might well be concerned about denting conning towers, but I wasn't aware that the Polar Science Center is funded by the DoD? I prefer the radio series obviously, but would you say there's an infinite improbability of normality being restored in the Arctic in the 21st century? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjbtZ4NgtdA

I feel sure I speak for all concerned when I say "You are most welcome"! P.S. Any chance of an ASIB/ASIF review copy of said literary/cinematic work in due course?

The feed from Aqua seems to be down today. Here's a lurid red (and still rather cloudy) view of the Laptev coast today, courtesy of Terra via Worldview: Temperatures in Tiksi have now reached +1, and the winds are still from the SSW.

John - The Navy's ACNFS seems to capture the extent of the multi-year ice in the Beaufort/Chukchi better than PIOMAS. See for example this IJIS RGB image: However I remain to be convinced that ice is as thick as CICE claims.

Werther - At a somewhat coarser resolution, here's Wipneus' homebrew SMOS map for March 31st:

John - I agree the pack is compacting towards the North, leaving a fair few isolated floes and some open water behind. By definition open water is above the freezing point of water! If you compare the various images you will note some refreezing has taken place over the last day or two. However according to the CCI's visualisation of the GFS forecast 2m air temperatures above freezing are due to arrive on the Laptev coast in the not too distant future: http://cci-reanalyzer.org/Forecasts/index_gfcst.php

Here's a MODIS image of the "thin ice" offshore in the Laptev Sea: Some more can be seen on the forum.

Quite so Vergent. Even a buoy theoretically in amongst the thickest ice was flushed unceremoniously out through the Nares Strait last year: http://batchgeo.com/map/imb-2013c However since were dealing with fiction here rather than fact, it might be helpful to know a bit more about the genre/premise of the nascent novel. How might the mysterious object have arrived at the North Pole in 1800 in the first place? With the aid of a talking polar bear? Or a UFO? Perhaps the only vaguely scientifically plausible mechanism for it to have survived until 2014 would be for it to somehow have been blown into a quiet corner of a fjord in Northern Ellesmere after one of the periodic openings of "The Big Lead"?

I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned The Fram's journey in the transpolar drift yet: http://www.frammuseum.no/ In more recent times the ice seems to have become more mobile as it thins. The yacht Tara sought to repeat the Fram's transpolar journey. She became locked in the Laptev Sea ice in September 2006, and emerged through the Fram Strait in December 2007. http://www.damocles-eu.org/research/TARA_ARCTIC_2007-2008_The_Great_Arctic_drift_54.shtml The ice mass balance buoys that started near the North Pole this time last year emerged through the Fram Strait before Christmas: http://batchgeo.com/map/imb-2013b Another buoy located at the Russian North Pole 40 ice camp started life somewhat further from the Pole, and is still transmitting from the vicinity of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago: http://batchgeo.com/map/imb-2012g I fear anything left in the ice at the North Pole even a few years ago will be long gone by now. Jim

DCS - I await the PIOMAS numbers for March with bated breath, but as Chris pointed out previously catch up was just about achieved in February: Do you recall Rob Dekker's snow cover based predictions from last summer? http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2013/07/problematic-predictions-2.html

sofouuk - It will certainly be interesting to see how the older ice now in the Beaufort Sea holds up as the melting season progresses. There's much discussion about that sort of thing over on the forum at the moment: http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php/topic,778.msg23154.html#msg23154 By way of example, anomalously warm conditions already exist in the Beaufort and East Siberian Seas, and have done for several months. Here's the surface air temperature anomaly for the first three months of 2014:

Hi Dave, and welcome! I'm Jim by the way, but currently using a nom de plume to try and fool the TypePad patent pending "spam" filter. I have to say I wasn't anticipating that my comment above would be read out loud in Boulder! Nonetheless, despite my somewhat dodgy feed here in the UK, I'm pretty sure Phil didn't mention the "lots of data" bit, and so made the point. As a professional scientist yourself, what did you make of Larry's comments yesterday about "citizen scientists"?

Thanks for the mention Larry!

Phil Jones' summary just now suggested "our blogging friends" want to see "lots o' plots". I thought Neven made it clear yesterday that actually we'd like to be able to download "lots o' data"?!