Meanwhile on Greenland, OGImet is reporting 4.3C at 1800Z for summit station, I wonder if we have another big melt on?

I only meant that the recent dip below average doesn't seem to be present on the equal-area measure.

It is easy to forget that The DMI 80 degree number is not really a sane measure of anything as it treats the area as a cylinder with 89 degrees counting the same as 80. We should just use the area-weighted (sane) Andrew Slater graph next door unless making historical comparisons. This looks bang on average to me.

Seattlerocks; the effect of a storm on the sea is more about the persistence of a broad flow than a swirl, maximal wave action happens when fetch, duration and pressure gradient line up. The cinematic "Perfect Storm" off the USA was a wimp compared to normal NW Europe winter storms. The Bering sea (Deadliest Catch) only ever sees ripples compared to what the UK, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Britany, NW Spain see every winter. Hills of water form and dissipate within seconds, giving an immunity to sea ice regardless of almost total lack of insolation. When the arctic becomes a lobe of the atlantic the freshwater will cease to cause a surface layer and that will likely be the end of winter ice.

25.9C recorded yesterday at Maniitsoq Mittarfia (Sukkertoppen Airport) SW Greenland. Looks like a national record to me, does anyone know for sure?

A-Team, I think that Wipneus graph shows the projected year for zero ice in all different months, not different predictions of the first zero. July through November shown ice free by 2020.

Mignonette, no-one has ever "looked" at an arctic so shattered. No-one. If you weren't new at watching paint dry/ice melt you would have noticed that shattering is a prelude to destruction. Many of us have been watching since before 2007 and realise the pan-crumbly arctic ice is a new thing. It wasn't like this in 2007 nor last year in June. Do not underestimate the power of July.

Phil263, I don't think it really makes much sense to talk about average "melt" in km2 when referring to extent. The CT area, in so far as it is accurate is what gives us the melt area, and is moving much faster, now below 9M, down 199k today. The time from 11M to 9M on the Pettit graph at 22 days is beaten only by 1999 in the whole series

Summit, Greenland -1.4C at 12UTC. Could be in for another 1 in 150 year melt soon.

Summit, Greenland soared to -3.4C yesterday.

Not sure why my link failed but check out Chris Biscan's link on the "Cycle Plots of arctic sea ice " thread; sept 7th http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr2/arctic_AMSR2_visual.png (This works for me in preview) The coastal waters are back under our scrutiny.

Neven, could we please have the new well-plotted AMSR2 Bremen maps on the graphs page? Chris Biscan broke the news on the 7th, I think you were on holiday. http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr2/index.

New Bremen map out. The Laptev Bite is opening.

Kris, records tumble index by index, and are not mitigated by saying one is higher than another used to be. They all have their idiosyncrasies and are not all measuring the same thing.

We can see multiple tight swirls of around 30km scale near the low centre and comprehensively ripped up ice underneath. The ice near Wrangell island can also be verified as departing. http://www.arctic.io/observations/8/2012-08-08/6-N72.544576-W135.871955 strong southerly winds forecast over much of the cut-off ice in a few days.

But the Coriolis Acceleration, and thus the lean on a plumb bob amongst other things, maxes out at 45 degrees http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap11/coriolis_acc.html

Just a reminder that it will be an interesting time to view the black and white Bremen map which discriminates those 1% to 9% concentration data shown as sea on the colour map.

So it WAS a crack I saw on the arctic.io image from the 14th. Have been fooled before by well placed clouds so I didn't dare say. Do we know if the fjord leads right to the middle of Greenland or not? this image is a bit vague, looks like it could do. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Topographic_map_of_Greenland_bedrock.jpg

Paul K predicted weeks ago that the two sectors N of the Bering Strait would melt out to 80N; Looks like a certainty now?. If you do the CT "30"/42 day animation, then there seems to be a big circular deconcentration happening at the base of the siberian arms.

To clarify, I'm talking about the NOAA et al chart.

Peter, it seems to me that the base for calculating anomaly for SSTs where frozen in the reference period is -1.7C or something close rather than Ice surface temp, because the anomaly chart doesn't vary where there is still ice, it's always within a degree, so we do still get useful info. BTW has anyone else been amazed by the persistence of a blob of 11C-12C water W of Svalbard for weeks?

If people expect negative feedback to rescue the summer ice, maybe they should ponder that strength varies with -4th power of thickness for a floating slab. We seem to have about a quarter of the ice of 1979, if this occupies half the area then we have already have half thickness thus 16th strength of before. swells will grow as fetches grow in this round ocean, and eventually start prevent the thin skin reforming in the centre with its deep water.

Neven, you spoke of ice going below concentration threshold, but have you noticed that the black and white Bremen map, taken at face value, shows concentrations right down to 1% versus 10% for the color one you seem to prefer. The laptev bite on the prelim was half full of this 1-9% stuff, and there are various other areas where such differences between the 2 maps show up.

Paul, Yes, that's definitely FJL on the right of the image.

I think we need as many vigorous little cyclones as possible now to churn the slush in those still-warm waters. They are more likely to visit now we have such warm water.