You can of course argue that this is mere cherry picking on our part, not to mention the slight economy with the truth in our necessarily punchy headline today. Nonetheless it is an actual fact that the IARC-JAXA Information System AMSR2 Arctic sea ice extent metric for February 17th 2015 reads 13,770,330 km² which is the lowest ever for the day of the year in a record going back to 2003. This follows a remarkably large fall (for the time of year) of 113,505 km² from yesterday’s reading of 13,883,835 km². Here’s our evidence:
If you prefer to look at numbers instead of pictures then by all means try here instead for proof of the latest shock news from the Arctic.
If instead you prefer moving pictures, here’s an animation based on high resolution AMSR2 data from the University of Hamburg that may provide a few clues about how all this came about:
Can you see how the recent storms in the North Atlantic have “pulled” and then “pushed” the sea ice to thisese new record lows?
Please also note this warning message on the IJIS “Arctic Sea Ice Monitor” web page:
Thank you for visiting our website.
This site will be closed on February 22, and might be unstable from February 15, 2015.
New sea ice monitor website will be coming soon. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, almost equivalent information can be available at:
JAXA:
http://kuroshio.eorc.jaxa.jp/JASMES/daily/polar/index.html
http://kuroshio.eorc.jaxa.jp/JASMES/climate/index.html
NIPR: National Institute of Polar Research , Japan
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/vishop-monitor.html?N
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/vishop-extent.html?N
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/data/graph/Sea_Ice_Extent_N_v2.png
https://ads.nipr.ac.jp/vishop/data/graph/Sea_Ice_Extent_N_v2_L.png
Stop Press!!!
The NSIDC daily extent for February 17th has now been revealed to be 14,303,570 km², which is also their lowest ever reading for the day of the year in a record going back to 1979.
This ever-decreasing ice mass will, sadly, become so undeniable that even the most committed of deniers will not be able to plausibly suggest it doesn’t exist. thanks for the great work you do, ‘takin’ it to them!’
Thanks for your kind words Harry.
As you may possibly already suspect, the pleasure is in fact all ours!
You might even ask Andy Lee Robinson for his latest Arctic ice ‘death spiral,” which shows how this trend just keeps getting worse.
OMG, this is headline news, following Daily Mail logic.
Did you know, BTW, that global sea ice area is also negative? At this pace, all the sea ice on the planet will be gone in 122 days.
Thanks for the suggestion Neven. I would bring this shock news directly to the attention of David Rose, but unfortunately he’s blocked me on Twitter in no uncertain terms!
Perhaps I’ll write another open letter to his managing editor at The Mail instead?
Now that “Wipneus” has provided us with some Antarctic regional area/extent data I will check your final shock projection against our independent metrics as soon as I have a spare 5 minutes!
You’ll be too late by then.
IJIS extent for February 18th shows a slight increase at 13,774,725 km², but remains the lowest reading for the date.
Neven – I’ve emailed John Wellington, so expect a front page article in the next edition of the Mail on Sunday!
I felt my ears burning… 🙂
Arctic Death Spiral:
and the latest Ice Cube video:
Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2014
[Thanks Andy. I’ve taken the liberty of embedding your image – Jim]
It’s now a few days later, and after a brief hiatus both the IJIS and NSIDC Arctic sea ice extent metrics are once again at an all time minimum for the date (February 28th in this case)
IJIS – 13,818,317 km²
NSIDC – 14,354,930 km²