Kevin, sorry for not being around. If you see me write on the ASIF, it's because I'm looking for distractions/escape. I try to follow the data, but my mind is just all over the place due to stress or a midlife crisis or who knows what. One thing I do know, is that the build-up of melting momentum seems to be very large right now.

Wipneus posted the mid-month update a few days ago.

And another JAXA drop. Quite an impressive final sprint. 206K dropped in the last 8 days. In the 2005-2019 period only 2005 comes close with 190K dropped in the last 8 days. And 2005 had 1.3 million km2 more ice to melt than 2019!

In my view, the GAC-2012 was indeed there at the right time because of all the melting momentum that preceded it. But even without the GAC, I think 2012 would have finished well below 4 million km2 on the JAXA SIE graph. It's difficult to tell, perhaps it wouldn't have if the weather had been the same as this year, during those final weeks.

Thanks, Kevin! I didn't have the time to proofread after I finished this update, as I had to run. But all the mistakes have been fixed now, and a final line has been added.

Glad to be of service. Now all we need for you to be really happy, is a return to pre-2005 levels. And then all will be well, as it always has been, and always will be.

I'm not predicting, it's a gamble (albeit with a basis: melting momentum).

I'm not sure. I've heard Trump is a big Céline Dijon fan.

Please note, when you click that last link, the irony of a guy melting ice with a gas burner. ;-) The more jokes I make, the more depressed I am.

Thanks, Geoff. Yes, it's going to be an exciting time to see whether the monster can be steered in a somewhat better direction. For every potential positive step, there's a negative one, and vice versa. I always thought that most of the hard work would consist in overcoming hard denial, which is why I started this blog. Arctic sea ice loss is simply undeniable, both intellectually as well as visually (which is even more important). I now see that there is also a lot of soft denial out there, in the sense that most people who believe that AGW is a serious issue, also believe that its consequences can be mitigated without substantially or structurally changing the system (ie our lifestyles). So, that's the next step, I guess.

Thanks, Kevin! Good to read you again. :-)

One last addition, which may not be so important at this time of year: Northern Hemisphere snow cover has been one of the lowest, if not the lowest, for weeks now. Especially in North America.

Hey Chris, good to hear from you! It has been my wish to pick up blogging again for a while now, but circumstances simply don't allow it. I've always thought that your Slow Transition theory made a lot of sense. But I think that a freak year with exceptional conditions can overcome it. I mean, just imagine, after the 2016/2017 winter - which was horrible for the ice (see the purple line on the first graph of this blog post) - the 2017 melting season would get confronted with this year's weather. I mostly agree with the consensus opinion that the Arctic could go ice-free between 2030-2040, but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened earlier because of an extraordinary melting season.

Here are some of the strands of evidence, AJbT.

Somewhere in between, AJbT. But hope for some weather that's good for the ice.