An observer's prediction

I received an e-mail today from Russell McKane with an interesting way of predicting the shape of this year's ice pack at minimum extent using ice temperature maps (had no idea those even existed). Thanks for sharing, Russell!

An observer’s prediction of the minimum for 2011

First, I am not a prophet or a prophet’s son. Neither am I a climate scientist or a scientist's son. But I have been reading and researching everything I could get my hands on, on the topic of climate change since 1984. I have also been tracking the ice melt daily in both hemispheres since 2006. Over time I have observed an interesting visual correlation on the Polar View website.

Particularly regards the Ice temperature - amsr.n.Ti2 - graphics as a predictor of arctic ice extent.

Here are a series of images from 2007-2011. It is a comparison of the Ti2 in the last week of July (nominally July27 – although this varies a bit due to data availability) with the ice concentration of the week of Ice extent minimum. I am using the amrs.C 0.3 (30%) ice edge. (The exception is 2009 where this measure was not available so I have used the qscat-HH15 (15%))

Here is the series:

2007