Another month (and a half) has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center:
The flatline that started in the second half of March, continued for a while longer during April, shot up a tiny bit towards this year's maximum, and then essentially flatlined again, with a small dip towards the end of the month. This year's maximum of 22,490 km3 is the third lowest on record, 116 and 1,708 km3 behind 2018 and 2017 respectively (yes, the three lowest maximums on record have all occurred in the last three years).
This year's monthly change for April was +127 km3, just 8 km3 above the average of +119 km3. Just like last month, 2019 is still fourth lowest, but the difference with 2011 and 2018, 63 and 44 km3 respectively, has become so small that you could say that they're sharing the second position (together with 2016 that is just 13 km3 behind 2019). The difference with leader 2017 is still large at 1665 km3, but the largest gap was a whopping 2550 km3 on February 14th.
Here's how the differences with previous years have evolved from last month:
Wipneus' version of the PIOMAS graph shows that 2016 dropped very fast during May, also in extent (more on that below):
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