Greg, The important part in PIOMAS is the sentence in 1st paragraph, that states the Sep average was 4000 cubic km, which is a new minimum (of course). -Gili

Dodger, you're right, should use the area number, not extent. -Gili

I guess it's best to ask the PIOMAS guys for their number, as it really matters if you interpret the daily average graph value as start-of-month or month average (mid-month). -Gili

Clearly the average for July end is about 14.4 (maybe 14.5). Subtract 10 and you get 4.4. The area to use is probably 6.9 (31 Jul), you get 4.4/6.9, about 0.638. -Gili

That was volume, average thickness is 4.4/6.7, about 0.657 meter -Gili

The ice thickness is about 4.4 [1000 km**3]- very low indeed. This is a bit rough, as I estimate the daily average from the graph. If anyone knows where the actual data is, that helps. In any case we're dealing with model estimates. -Gili

Hi Dodger, If you look at the past 5 years, melt season weather has played a major role (cloud cover, winds). The Gulf stream is also clearly important, but I'm not aware of important Pacific flows. Will appreciate pointers to articles about this. -Gili

The last 2 days PIPS show the gyre direction as clockwise, which may explain why the melt is picking up again.. Also, the ice flow out of Lincoln sea via Nares strait seems to have resumed, based on comparing ASAR images from yesterday (in the DMI site; regular images show only the cloud cover). -Gili

Guys, There's an interesting piece by Dr. Walt Meier, about PIPS2-vs-PIOMAS, in WATTS. Essentially it says that for ice volume estimates PIPS is not relevant, PIOMAS is. Yes, it says so in WATTS. -Gili

The ice-bridge in NWP is breaking (cloud cover just moved). You started looking at melt in specific parts of the arctic, which is the way to go: what matters in September is how much ice melted from the arctic basin, elsewhere very little is left. Seems this year there will be less ice towards Sxandinavi/Svalbard then in 2007, but towards the Chukchi sea, Beaufort and East Siberian there was a large melt in 2007, probably less this year, a bit early to tell. Due to the unusual amount of thick ice in the East Siberian, the North East Pass may open later than the NWP, which to me seems a big surprise. -Gili

Both the Topaz and PIPS2 models claim the only large area with thick ice left is in the East Siberian Sea. This fits well with MODIS images of that area, and is quite different from recent years. -Gili

Hi, The AARI drift forecast for 4-6 days is very strange: it reverses the direction of both the Beaufort Gyre and the TransPolar drift-- I think you should ignore it. Thanks for the nice constant blogging work. -Gili