During the melting season I'm writing (bi-)weekly updates on the current situation with regards to Arctic sea ice (ASI). Because of the demise of AMSR-E the IJIS sea ice extent (SIE) numbers are no longer central to these updates. Instead I now use Cryosphere Today sea ice area (SIA) numbers and compare them to the SIA numbers in the 2005-2011 period. NSIDC has a good explanation of sea ice extent and area in their FAQ. I also look at other things like regional sea ice area, sea ice extent, temperature and weather forecasts, anything that can be of particular interest. Check out the Arctic sea ice graphs webpage for daily updated graphs, maps and live webcam images.
April 22nd 2012
A new year, a new spring, a new melting season. After a very deceptive/instructive end of the winter season the Arctic sea ice is off to an extremely slow start. Of course there already were above average conditions in regions like the Bering Sea and Baffin Bay, and when two weeks ago a big high pressure system in the middle of the Arctic got a huge clockwise gyre going,the ice pack was pushed into the big, empty expanse on the Atlantic side of the Arctic (see Novaya Zemlya April 2012). But because temperatures are still quite low at this time of the year, the ice pushed southwards didn't melt and the leads that were created elsewhere quickly froze over.
Conditions have turned this year into a copy of 2010, worse even, with extent and area numbers approaching the long-term averages. Whether the situation remains like this, or whether trend lines start falling of a cliff like they did in 2010, is the first big question of the melting season.
Without further ado, let's have a look at the numbers.
Sea Ice Area (SIA)
Here's the current SIA graph based on CT data:
The 2012 trend line is clearly jutting out. SIA had been going down very hard in the first week of April, but since then we have seen a substantial slowdown, with lots of days of SIA increase. The numbers make it more than clear that 2012 is behind all the other years in the 2005-2012 period, and thus 8th out of 8 years.
The current difference between 2012 and the other years is as follows:
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