This is a follow-up to Retrospective 1, where I summarized last year's blog posts up till the end of July. I'm continuing the overview containing the most interesting articles and animations of the past year. It's also a handy reference for comparison with this year's events.
August 1st 2010: Area vs extent was one of last year's highlights, in my humble opinion. It started with a discussion in a comment thread and resulted in the CAPIE index, a handy graph that tells us whether the ice pack is diverging or compacting. It was followed by another blog post on the same subject the next day.
August 5th 2010: Of course, we all remember the day that Patrick Lockerby informed us that a huge chunk of the Petermann Glacier had broken off. One day later I speculated on patches of ice getting separated from the main pack, as it was spreading out a lot last year.
August 10th 2010: This was one of the most interesting animations I made last year, showing ice transport through the channels of the Canadian Archipelago. We are in a similar situation this year.
August 16th 2010: Around this time the Northern Sea Route was opening up, just in time for the Norwegians to sail through it and head for the Northwest Passage.
August 19th 2010: Another animation showing ice transport through Fram Strait. This post was followed by several updates, the last one being Race to Fram Strait 6. I have started a similar animation a bit earlier this year.
August 25th 2010: With fast ice on the northeast coast of Greenland breaking up, people are wondering if this is new or a recurring thing. I wondered the same thing last year, making an animation of the break-up and comparing it to previous years. On the same date I also made a follow-up animation in a subsequent blog post of the ice transport in the channels between the Queen Elizabeth Islands.
August 29th 2010: This was the first instalment of my End Zone series, comparing the final phase of the melting season in 2007, 2008 and 2009 to get an idea of what might be in store for 2010. This first post was on air temperature, followed the same day by a second on ice displacement, and the day after by a third on sea level pressure, a fourth on sea surface temperatures and a fifth on sea ice concentration. Phew, busy times!
August 29th 2010: I also managed to release an updated animation of the ice island that broke off of Petermann Glacier.
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Reading back all those posts and comments I'm struck by all the things we managed to achieve last year. A great knowledge base was laid, from which we are already profiting this year and will be profiting next year(s).
At the end of August I will write a last Retrospective to cover the last posts of last year's melting season.
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