There has been a few thoughts on this blog on how the denialist industry will spin this record low - and now we know for sure. The spin is that this is normal - it has happend before - as opposed to "it will recover soon". New dogma apperently. Fun stuff really. Appart from hiding of the fact that summer insolation was greater under optimum than now. What are they trying to tell (sell) - that summer insolation is the same now, as of 6000 years ago. Really, how stupid can it get.

Christensen, it was warmer in summertime on NH during holocene optimum due to increased summer insolation (related to earths orbit) - not neseccerily warmer all year. In geological terms, before present normally means before 1950, if not otherwise stated. According to Hansen (2006 and 2012), global mean temperature passed holocene optimum about year 2000. Holocene optimum was probably only a few tens of a degree warmer than mid past century.

idunno: Alert is probably more affected by low albedo than NP - more likely with higher temperature in Alert than NP due to lower albedo in the neighborhood is my guess. NP will probably not have higher summer temperature until it has lower albedo i close vicinity.

The GAC2012, now official ;-)

Rutgers snow cover anomaly for NH in july is down again - a new record low - who could have guessed: July snow cover NH

Steve Bloom: James Hansen argues that the temperature gradient between low and middle/high latitudes will increase as global warming continues. This dosn't address yout question directly, but according to Hansen these type of events might become more frequent in the comming years. YouTube (J Hansen): The Runaway Greenhouse effect

Sorry, my comment was addressed to Peter Ellis: There is presumably a lag time of ~2-3 years for ice conditions to adapt to the climatically-specified level.

Bob, according to Jason Box (2009), the lag time for the Greenland ice sheet (vs. NH) is 10 years, and he argues that the Greenland warming would continue to warm 1.08-1.68C after the warming NH warming flattens out. - Using the empirical relationships between Greenland and the Northern Hemisphere surface air temperature data, we calculate that if Greenland was to become in phase with the hemispheric pattern, as it did after 1923, an additional 1.08–1.68C warming would occur. If we take into account what Hansen says, the slow climate feedback (vegetation and ice) might take more than a hundred years before the climatic response is fullfiled. So the Arctic sea ice is probably doomed even if GHGs level out, it remains to be seen if the Greenland ice sheet can be saved.

The couple with canoes headed for the north pole has turned around due to the ice conditions (to little open water) and slow progress.

Day 5 in the Arctic by canoe (saturday), 83 degrees north heading for the pole - little open water still according to ut.no. Funny, they was visited by a housefly at 83 degress north: - Rune had another highlights when he received a visit today. A housefly flew by and sat down on his sledge before it flew off again.

>This leads to more bottom melting according to Don. My understanding is that the ice albedo feedback is much stronger than the relatively weak forcing from CO2 each year - so a small change in CO2 each year leads to a small change in temperature in the arctic which reduces the ice cover (stronger from bottom than on surface), and in response trigger a much bigger temperature change and ice cover than CO2 alone would produce. This of course would implicate that the loss of sea ice seasonally in the Arctic would probably lead to a much stronger response than our understanding so far (I'm arguing that the ice albedo feedback is underestimated, also confirmed by a study published earlier this year).

Werther wrote: - Is there a scientific basis to the assumption that the melt is driven from down under? Donald Perovich argues that reduced sea ice in the arctic leads to more solar input which leads to more melting - a classic ice albedo feedback. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5T5UsPSBO4 This leads to more bottom melting according to Don.

Cecilie Skog and Rune Gjeldnes is planning a trip to the North pole by canoe. Not much media coverage on this story, but here is a google translation. Lost in translation (from the title): poleventyr = polar adventure The trip is also mentioned here (also google translate). I'll be happy to give updates when more information is available (there was an other trip planned by kajak this year but this trip has been cancelled).

A bit OT but the Antarctic ice extent seems a bit odd: http://www.iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/ice_ext_s.png Very early start of melt season it seems?

Whats "wrong" with the Arctic Roos data? http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic

According to a letter to Nature in April 2010: The evidence from the past two decades, based on ERA-Interim, reveals that recent reductions in sea ice cover and thickness have been great enough to enhance Arctic warming strongly during most of the year. http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/files/arctique-ann%C3%A9es-2000-tures.pdf

At last some real polar amplification! Well, I don't know but there is a paper i Nature (if I recall correctly) claiming that Arctic amplification is taking place and it is due to reduction of sea ice primarily. As I understand this is happening much earlier than previously anticipated. I can always dig up the reference if it is of interest.

Northern Passage has escaped to open sea! There is a high probabillity that they will be the first to go through northeast and northwest passage in a single season! http://www.ousland.no/2010/08/escape-to-the-open-sea/

You are quite right about your understanding of "lykke"! Just waiting for a new update from Thorleif Thorleifsson and Børge Ousland which I believe it is imminent..

Just to fix the "lykken staar den kjekke bi" problem (from a native Norwegian): "lykken" means fortune "staar" (or står - modern) means stand "den" means it "kjekke" means handsome (in this case bold) "bi" means by The proverb is from latin ("Fortes fortuna adiuvat") and means "Fortune favours the bold".