Tag Archives: Minimum

Facts About the Arctic in August 2023

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We have grandchildren visiting this week, so it seems prudent to get the new open thread started a day early, and before they wake up!

The ARCUS Sea Ice Prediction Network July report has recently been published. Here’s the graphic overview of the 30 predictions for September sea ice monthly average extent:

The July median forecasted value for pan-Arctic September sea-ice extent is 4.66 million square kilometers with interquartile values of 4.51 and 4.87 million square kilometers, while individual forecasts range from 3.12 and 5.30 million square kilometers. We note the lowest forecast is an outlier, and the only forecast that predicts a new record September sea-ice extent value (current record is September 2012, with a sea-ice extent of 3.57 million square kilometers).

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Facts About the Arctic in February 2023

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A new month has arrived, and during January several Arctic sea ice metrics have been drifting towards the bottom of their respective decadal ranges. To begin with here is AWI’s high resolution AMSR2 extent graph, which is currently very close to being lowest for the date in the AMSR2 record:

However that is less the case for area:

Taylor is keen to see the PIOMAS volume data for January, but whilst we wait for the latest Polar Science Center update here is the CryoSat-2/SMOS volume graph, which now includes a couple of month’s worth of reanalysed results as well as more recent near real time numbers:

Here too is the start of month CS2/SMOS thickness map:

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