The PIOMAS Arctic sea ice volume numbers for January 2017 have just been published. Yet another new record low for the date:

Here’s the PIOMAS gridded thickness for January 31st, courtesy of Wipneus at the Arctic Sea Ice Forum:

Somewhat anomalously it shows the thickest ice some distance away from the coast of Greenland and/or Ellesmere Island. Here too is Andy Lee Robinson‘s updated PIOMAS “Arctic death spiral”:

Meanwhile yet more anomalously warm air is entering the Arctic Basin from both the Pacific and Atlantic sides:

That sort of thing has happened quite a few times over the 2016/17 freezing season, as you can see from this graph of cumulative Freezing Degree Days (FDD for short):

The FDD graph is based on the same data as the probably much more familiar DMI “Daily mean temperatures for the Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel” graph:

Things are warming up in the Arctic once again.

 

[Edit – February 5th]

Whilst we await the arrival of the forecast anomalous warmth, how are some other metrics coming along? Here’s the high resolution AMSR2 area and extent:

It looks like they’re back in the “normal” range for now, does it not?

 

[Edit – February 6th]

Things currently still look fairly frosty over on the Pacific side of the Arctic, as you can see from the webcam at Utqiagvik (Barrow as was):

However over on the Atlantic side (and especially for “Richard”!) melting can now be observed on Svalbard:

An extremely powerful cyclone off Greenland is pumping heat and moisture northwards:

Note that the cyclone’s MSLP fell to 940 hPa earlier today. This is the GFS precipitable water forecast for Wednesday lunchtime:

Finally, for the moment at least, here’s the current weather forecast for Longyearbyen in Svalbard:

All in all there’s plenty more heat and moisture on the way.

 

[Edit – February 13th]

The temperatures in Svalbard have now dropped back below freezing point:

As temperatures over parts of the Arctic Basin have reached zero degrees Celsius and above, Arctic sea ice extent has been declining:

Now take a look at area:

Area has declined a lot! That’s because sea ice concentration is now noticeably <100% across much of the Arctic:

There’s also been a discernable change in slope of the DMI freezing degree days graph:

 

[Edit – February 19th]

There’s been a late spurt of growth in both area and extent, which are now back in the pack of previous years:

The newly frozen areas are currently still very thin:

Meanwhile northern hemisphere snow cover has started to melt in earnest:

Watch this space!