Nevin, let me add my heartfelt thanks for everything you've done and created here, as well as my best wishes for your 'sustainable lifestyle project.' We're trying to do something of the sort ourselves, albeit toned down a bit, as we're a generation older than you and must plan on lower *personal* energy levels over the next decade or two! Thanks, too, for the chance to collaborate with you. It was a pleasure and a privilege! I don't make it by here as often as I used to--more paid employment (good), and a shift of emphasis toward studying and writing more about mitigation strategies (hopefully good, but who knows?) But dropping by is always like visiting a family home. Thanks again for yor role as builder-in-chief of this cyber-home!

Quite the finish to the melt season! How low can it go? Guess we'll soon know, but this is 'spectacular', all right.

Hi, AbbottIsGone-- One (fruitful, I hope) way to think of the greenhouse effect's patterns of warming is that they don't involve so much actual warming as diminished cooling. So it's only logical that night-time and winter-time temperatures will be the most affected. A pretty stark example is the DMI 'north of 80' temperature reanalysis: there's little change over the years in summer temps, but marked warming for the winter months.

It's hard to disagree with Neil's points. One slight addition, though; there is a significant negative feedback which we've previously discussed here: that is that more open water in the fall also means more heat loss from the ocean. That ties in with the comment about early melt, though--the implication would seem to be that seasons like this one are more damaging than what has bwen typical. Front-load area loss and you maximize the effect of the albedo feedback. Maybe you also increase ocean mixing in the CAB and get more warming at depth, too.

Apparently not. Trying again:

Here's a screen shot of the Fort McMurray fire plume. I was remiss in my earlier comment not to state clearly that the smoke isn't currently reaching the Arctic shore, but rather that it is forecast to do so in the next couple of days (note the date on the screen shot.) Hopefully this is the correct html:

"Schnieders", not "Schneiders." Damn autocorrect anyway!

Another joker thrown into the hand, at least as far as snow cover in the western Canadian Arctic and remaining Beaufort ice are concerned: the smoke plume from the Fort McMurray fire seems to be reaching the shore, according to this: http://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/ Don't know how long that may last, nor how much deposition may be expected, but if we're looking at a prolonged period of sunny skies, a fine dusting of soot will not help matters any. (Hat tip to Michael Schneiders for asking the question over at RC.)

"Stupid"!?!?!? Really, could a stupid person write this: I have theorized that if we could somehow bring the 1988 testimony of James Hansen to the volcanic peak of Mauna Loa and drop it into the fiery bowels of the infernal mountain itself, we would finally end the reign of Al Gore for good. It would be an arduous and perilous quest for some brave blog scientists, for Mauna Loa is said to be circled by predator drones controlled by the all seeing eye of Obama. Even more dangerous however is the corrupting nature of logic and facts. The person we send would have to carefully chosen, someone who possesses an inate immunity to reason. I would volunteer to do this myself, but I have been drinking a lot of wine lately and plan to drink quite a bit more.

I've got to take issue with your formulation, Rick, though the overall point is correct. Stated the way you have done, there would be 'no trend' in the UAH temperature record, for instance: its calculated value is 0.11 C/decade, but if you look at the anomaly values for 1998 (0.42 C) and 1999 (-0.05 C), you will find a 'fluctuation' of 0.47 C, or more than four times the decadal trend. Yet as you know, the reported UAH is indeed robust and statistically significant.

"…cooler than the air…" Indeed. Readers may be interested in the investigations of William Charles Wells, who investigated the phenomenon of dew in the 1810s, winning the Royal Society's Rumford Medal for his considerable pains. (Also, later, the admiration of none other than John Tyndall.) Having considered these “circumstances” affecting the formation of dew, Wells examines the “circumstances” affecting the cold which is dew’s precursor: on clear, still nights, the grass would become much cooler than the air temperature (customarily measured at 4 feet); long grass would cool more than short grass; and wind or cloud tended to eliminate this difference in temperature—although high cloud “would yet frequently allow of the grass being several degrees colder than the air.” The ground beneath the grass would be warmer; metal lying upon the grass tended to be warmer, too. http://doc-snow.hubpages.com/hub/Global-Warming-Science-In-The-Age-Of-Washington-And-Jefferson-William-Charles-Wells

3.25 If memory serves me correctly, that was my previous guesstimate. Repeating it reflects my assessment that the slow start will not strongly affect the September outcome. The original rationale was a guesstimate that 2012 did indeed represent a regime change, and that the process of ice loss would end up taking us 10% below the 2012 value.

Excellent summary, Neven. This bit: "As the melting season ends, it feels as if things are only beginning. The age of consequences." ...really spoke for me.

Cool! And from a 'bird' designed to deliver information on wind... But I have to wonder how homogenous this year's data is? Presumably IJIS have done what they can to splice the data as adroitly and as accurately as possible? Oh well, that won't affect our ability to follow day to day changes--though historical context will remain somewhat problematic, I suspect.