Anyone know why the US sea ice area stuff hasn't updated in almost a week? Normally they dont' get more than 3 days behind. (Maybe they don't like having their announcement of the minimum scooped?)

While I'm still hoping that we get a nice cold fall and a reprieve from an ice free Arctic for a couple more years, I think anything still can happen. The DMI sea surface pressure map is showing wind from the Barents Sea straight across the Arctic to the Bering Stait. Who knows what a warm strong wind from Europe might do to the ice pack if it persists for a few days ... Not saying 2013 is going to break any records, but it might break a few hearts.

Looks like the storm is expected to hover around the pole for the next 4 days. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/forecasts/reforecast2/wx_maps/html/allmaps_f096_nh.html Hopefully this is the end of the melt season above 80N, and the ice stays in good shape to build over the winter. (Fingers crossed) Unfortunately, it looks like the Canadian archipelago will have a hot weekend and might melt out.

Did area just drop by 400k? How close to a record is the June 6-June 7 area decline. (not to incur P-maker's ire) that low has refueled and is quite powerful. I'm expecting a post tropical low today which isn't nearly as deep. I think that May volume data will end up being a blip.

Hurray! Finally some calming news from that infernal PIOMAS data. Now if only it would also start to get thicker.

In the tropics, it is my understanding that intense lows are fueled by evaporation of the rain, which then rises - fueling the low pressure system. What is fueling the low here? Newly opened water? Melting? Perhaps the arctic cyclones are growing to be a feature of the new normal?

I think the decline has decoupled from the annual variance, so I'm saying September mean = 3,000,000 km^2 Minimum should go below 3*10^6km^2

My second favorite part of this blog - the links to data - is gone! Wha' happen'd?

about 130 days until the minimum (if we don't hit 0 sooner). Is there going to be a poll this year on what we think the minimum area/extent/volumes might be? Or phrase differently - Neven, can we please have a poll on each of the above? For my part, I'd like to put in the following guesses: Area goes to 1.9-2.0 million km^2 Extent goes to 2.8-2.9 million km^2 Volume goes to 3000-3100 km^3

I thought there was a concensus that we had passed the climate optimum and were on the downward trend towards a new ice age? I guess not. Reminds me of a Robert Frost poem: Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

Questions: 1. What do people think the annual max will top out at this year? Any polls to be posted? 2. What happens to the Danish north of 80 2m average temperature chart when the ice cap melts? Will that shoot sky high? 3. What is the concensus on January PIOMAS? Was it cold enough to generate some good ice thickness this year? Wipneus, The Arctic on the Edge video was pretty neat. But talking about 100 years from now seems pretty conservative, no?

Questions: 1. What do people think the annual max will top out at this year? Any polls to be posted? 2. What happens to the Danish north of 80 2m average temperature chart when the ice cap melts? Will that shoot sky high? 3. What is the concensus on January PIOMAS? Was it cold enough to generate some good ice thickness this year?

I'm a macro kind of guy, which is a long way of writing lazy. Can someone with more patience explain whether the SSW event in the NH now will also ripple through and cause a July heat wave in corresponding latitudes. Are South Africa and Argentina also experiencing the ripple of the SH SSW in the same manner as Oz now? Thanks

Jan 1 1979 - 25000 km^3 Jan 1 2010 - 16000 km^3 Jan 1 2013 - 13000 km^3 Jan 1 2022 - 0 km^3 and forever thereafter unless something harsh enough to freeze it happens. (Heaven help us either way, I guess.) This just doesn't seem correct. Will the ocean really have that much surface heat to avoid freezing even after 14 weeks without sunlight? Hard to argue with this trend line through.

Crandles, I like your optimism. My little calculation does sound absurd. And worse, as soon as you assign some non-zero probability (even one chance in a 10,000) that I am correct, you get the potential for insurable claims on the order of net present value of 100 Trillion in the next 50 to 70 years - almost all of the happening in a very tight timeframe. It would become impossible to insure any building that did not take 7 metre sea level rise into account. Will bet me 10,000 to 1 that I am wrong. I'll need to bet $100, because my house is within 10 metres of sea level, but all access is below. ;)

Or someone can check my math: (wiki says ice sheet has "2,850,000 cubic kilometres" of ice) 1 m^3 = approx 1 tonnne 1 km^3 = 1 approx 1 Gt (ignore ice less dense than water) So the whole thing is 2,850,000 Gt? I.e. a cubic kilometer is roughly a Gt of ice (take 10%?) How long to lose half? Integrate -570-30y = -1425000 and solve for y 570y+ 15y^2= -1425000 = (-570 +/- sqrt(570^2+4*15*1425000))/(2*15)= approx 400 years. My expectation is that the acceleration is accelerating as suggested by Al. If an exponential fit is accurate. This is much more alarming. For instance: 1. if the rate of ice loss is doubling every 5 years, using the numbers above, half the ice sheet will be gone in 56 years and - of course - all of it is gone 5 years later; or 2. if the rate of ice loss is doubling every 3 years, all of it is gone by 2050. That would really suck. Ice levels would rise by 3.6 meters by 2068 (2045) and then by another 3.6 meters between 2068 (2046) and 2073 (2049). The horrors of exponential growth. Let's hope there is another feedback loop yet to kick in and save us.

Can someone less lazy than I do the math? If the accelerated mass loss is 30Gt/yr^2; when has half the Greenland Ice "left the building" (i.e. raised the sea level)? Thanks

Djprice, Those are the 1-2% of global GDP questions, aren't they? What will the new normal be? How long will the new normal be the new normal? Now that we have to move all the cities and farms, where do we move them? We had a beautiful summer here in Newfoundland due to the blocking high. Water 4-5 degrees warming than normal all summer - best summer in living memory. Of course, 2011 was the worst June-July in living memory. Are either of them the new normal? Here's hoping Obama has his Lincoln moment on climate change, taxes carbon, and starts righting the ship.

Further to Artful Dodger's request for an open thread, can we have a thread for pre-December 31 predictions for sea ice minimums in 2013. Fiddling while Rome burns, yes, but still fun.

Anyone know why the October PIOMAS data isn't out yet?

Protege, My understanding of the calculation is that you should consider the following Grid point 1: day 1 - day 25 = 0% ice day 27-31 = 100% ice Grid average = 5/31 ~= 0.161% The ice extent greatly overstates the health of the ice in the Spring and the Fall, since a point with 100% ice for 5 days of the month is considered to have ice. Wipneus, did I get this right?

I stand my my prediction of first ice free day of August 24, 2016. By ice free, I'm saying less than 250km^3 ice per PIOMAS. I'm backing the exponential curve for August, but just taking the guess that it doesn't quite make it until late in the month. I'm convinced by Anthony, that the ice free in September will be very tough given that some ice will likely start to reform somewhere in that month.

Interesting. How about with exponential melting of ice volume? That seems to be the better predictor. Problem with gompertz, is that 0 ice is not a true 0, water keeps getting warmer after it melts.

Vis-a-vis the exponential curve for volume, 2012 was almost a bit of a "recovery" year. When you look at last winter especially. I think we are at the point where annual variation will have a hard time overcoming the climate forcing and there will be records to the volume melt until its gone - absent some time of miraculous or catestrophic intervention.

Anyone have an inside track on the latest and greatest PIOMAS data. They must have had their minimum volume by now. The suspense is killing me. Did volume go much below 3400? Obsessed minds want to know ...