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G man

Interesting. The early July spike would seem to correlate well to the sudden onset of the very slow beginning to Greenlands melt season. On the flip side the late July temps have seen Greenlands melt come to very early end.

Neven

There's a fantastic segment on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum for discussing Greenland and its glaciers, with people presenting all kinds of analysis and satellite images. Really top quality stuff.

The same goes for the Antarctica segment.

Information is everything.

Phil

Hi Neven,
Purely out of interest for your alliteration, 'Jenga' is swahili for build, and build with an exclamation mark - Jenga! Build!
I found this out when a couple of years ago I delivered a skills development for Protected Area Managers at a research station in Kenya called Mpala, and stayed in a house called Jenga, which was built with funds donated by the woman who invented and marketed the game. She used to live nearby.
Thank for all your work:)
Phil

Neven

Thanks, Phil. I wouldn't be able to sleep in a house called Jenga. Just imagine someone pulling out the wrong piece of wood. ;-)

Phil

Very good :) :)

RunInCircles

I have been watching the north pole web cams for a few years. My memory tells me that the melt ponds always start freezing over by the last week in July or the first week in August. Does anybody else remember it this way? How many think that the block of ice just north of Alaska will still be there at the end of this melt season?

Jim Hunt

A couple of yachts have now managed to make it through the Bellot Strait on the southern route through the Northwest Passage:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/2015/08/is-the-northwest-passage-open-yet/

Here's an animation of a satellite's view of what's been happening to the sea ice in the vicinity over the summer of 2015:

http://youtu.be/sZtQ8XDxBAI

Jim Hunt

RunInCircles,

Perhaps your memory is faulty? I seem to recall "north pole web cams" (which of course aren't anywhere near the North Pole by then!) falling over into the melting ice by the end of July 2011:

http://youtu.be/h1Xc0rUtJ4A

Here's the view from another one at the end of July 2013:

Click the image for the bigger picture.

G man

Well it looks like the melt will shut down very soon with winds howling up Baffin Bay and Northward up the Fram. Also with winds in the Arctic central H-pressure almost forming a wall of wind slamming the ice cap up against the Canadian Archipelago stopping any escape through the Fram. And temps according DMI are about to go below freezing anyday now.

http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=mean_sea_level_pressure/orthographic=-48.34,85.94,497

jdallen_wa

With respect, G-man, temps won't be far enough below zero, and, there is still an awful lot of energy still present and *entering* the Arctic such that momentum will continue for several more weeks.

Also, don't underestimate the influence of moisture being carried along as well. It is premature to predict an end to the melt.

I will note on the forums, weather like this was noted at the end of July, and someone predicted a "sharp slowdown". The next week following saw something 600,000 KM2 of melt, iirc.

I don't expect that here, but I'd caution you against making broad vaguely supported assertions.

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