Tag Archives: SMOS

Facts About the Arctic in December 2021

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Christmas is coming. Santa’s secret summer swimming pool has frozen over. The time has come for a new monthly Arctic update.

The JAXA/ADS/ViSHOP web site is undergoing maintenance for a week, so let’s start the festive season with a look at high resolution AMSR2 area and extent:

After a brief hiatus in early November both metrics are once again tracking within, but near the upper bound of the last 10 years.

Next let’s take a look at the latest AWI CryoSat-2/SMOS thickness map:

together with the anomaly map from the Finnish Meteorological Institute:

Still thinner than usual in the so called “last ice area” north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island, and thicker than usual on the Siberian side of the Arctic, particularly in the Chukchi Sea.

Finally, for the moment at least, here’s the latest CryoSat-2/SMOS volume graph:

Unlike the previous metrics, this particular one is close to the middle of the pack.

[Edit – December 5th]

The National Snow and Ice Data Center issued their latest monthly Arctic Sea Ice News update earlier than usual this month:

Sea ice extent increased at a faster than average pace through November and by the end of the month, extent was just within the interdecile range. Extent was above average in the Bering Sea, but Hudson Bay remained unusually ice free through the month.

The November 2021 monthly average extent was 9.77 million square kilometers (3.77 million square miles), which ranked tenth lowest in the satellite record. The 2021 extent was 930,000 million square kilometers (359,000 million square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 long-term average. Extent was higher than average in the Bering Sea, but is extremely low in Hudson Bay.

Air temperatures at the 925 millibar level (about 2,500 feet above the surface) were well above average north of the Canadian Archipelago, by as much as 6 degrees Celsius. Conversely, temperatures over southwest Alaska and the eastern sector of the Bering Sea were as much as 6 degrees Celsius below average:

The sea level pressure pattern for November featured widespread low pressure over the Atlantic side of the Arctic and extending into the Barents and Kara Seas, paired with a moderately strong Beaufort Sea High. Strong low pressure over the Gulf of Alaska resulted in a circulation pattern in the eastern Bering Sea that brought cold air from the north. This pattern was favorable for sea ice growth, and can explain the above average ice extent in the region:

[Edit – December 7th]

Since the start of December high resolution AMSR2 extent has been flatlining:

Sea ice area has even declined slightly over the past few days:

Here too is an animation created by Uniquorn on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum using AWI ASMR2 data to reveal ice movement through the Nares Strait during December:

[Edit – December 9th]

The JAXA/ADS/ViSHOP web site is down again, so let’s take another look at high resolution AMSR2 area and extent:

It seems that the “brief hiatus” is over, and extent is now in a “statistical tie” with 2018/19 at 4th lowest for the date amongst recent year.

[Edit – December 13th]

The PIOMAS Arctic sea ice volume data for November 2021 has been released:

Average Arctic sea ice volume in November 2021 was 7,830 km3. This value is the 7th lowest on record for November,  about  1600 km3 above the  record set in 2016.   Monthly  ice volume was 61% below the maximum in 1979 and 45% below the mean value for 1979-2020. Average November 2021 ice volume was about one sigma above the 1979-2020 trend line. October saw relative rapid ice growth  for recent years bringing the mean ice thickness  (above 15 cm thickness) above the recent low values: 

The ice thickness anomaly map for November 2021 relative to 2011-2020 continues to show anomalies divided into positive and a negative halves with areas of positive anomalies increasing since the two prior months. Negative anomalies stretching from North of Greenland and along the Canadian Archipelago across the Eastern Arctic into the Barents Sea. Areas North of Greenland again feature very low ice thickness as in prior years (see our recent paper).  Positive anomalies are notable in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas due to advection of thicker older ice into the areas during the previous winter (See recent paper on this). The Alaskan summer has also been relatively cold contributing to unusually thick ice in this area:

CryoSat-2 ice thickness shows a similar picture sea ice thickness anomalies but with the maxima slightly displaced which maybe due to temporal sampling of the composite:

The JAXA web site is still down, so here’s another set of high resolution AMSR2 graphs:

[Edit – December 14th]

NOAA have just released their 2021 Arctic Report Card. Here’s the introductory video:

and here is the report itself:

[Edit – December 18th]

Ice hardened LNG tanker Vladimir Vize is about to enter the Vilkitsky Strait on the Northern Sea Route:

Meanwhile Science.org reports that “The Arctic is warming four times faster than the rest of the world“:

“Everybody knows [the Arctic] is a canary when it comes to climate change,” says Peter Jacobs, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, who presented the work on 13 December at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. “Yet we’re misreporting it by a factor of two. Which is just bananas.”

Jacob’s co-authors include researchers who oversee several influential global temperature records, and they noted the faster Arctic warming as they prepared to release the global temperature average for 2020. NASA’s internal peer reviewer challenged the higher figure, suggesting the scientific literature didn’t support it. But the researchers have found the four times ratio holds in record sets from both NASA (3.9) and the United Kingdom’s Met Office (4.1), and they hope to soon include the Berkeley Earth record. (Their work also has company: In July, a team at the Finnish Meteorological Institute posted a preprint also arguing for the four times figure.)

The researchers found Arctic warming has been underestimated for a couple of reasons. One is climate scientists’ tendency to chop each hemisphere into thirds and label the area above 60°N as the “Arctic”—an area that would include, for example, most of Scandinavia. But the true definition of the Arctic is defined by Earth’s tilt. And, as has been known for centuries, the Arctic Circle is a line starting at 66.6°N. When researchers lump in the lower latitudes, “you’re diluting the amount of Arctic warming you’re getting,” Jacobs says. “That is not a trivial thing.”

The other difference is the choice of time periods over which the warming rate is calculated. Jacobs and his colleagues focused on the past 30 years, when a linear warming trend emerged for the Arctic. Analyses that look at longer term trends see less divergence between the Arctic and the world.

[Edit – December 23rd]

Here is the latest CryoSat-2/SMOS volume graph, now including some reanalysed data which seems to have come in slightly higher than the earlier “near real time” numbers:

Plus the AWI thickness map:

Further discussion of the divergence between volume and extent continues in the new New Year 2022 thread:

ICESat-2 2021 Sea Ice Thickness

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We reported on the first ICESat-2 sea ice thickness data to be released back in May. We are now very pleased to be able to reveal that the data up to April 2021 is now available for download from the NSIDC web site. Here’s a visualisation of April’s data:

For comparison purposes here’s the CryoSat-2/SMOS equivalent:

ICESat-2 looks to have captured the arm of thicker ice extending across the Beaufort Sea suggested by sea ice age data better than CryoSat-2:

However thickness data is totally absent where leads are absent, in land-fast ice for example. It seems that near real time ICESat-2 processing isn’t available as yet, but we await the release of the data for October with barely bated breath!

Watch this space!

Facts About the Arctic in May 2021

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It’s May Day 2021, and just for a change we’re going to start the month off with a pretty picture!

Parts of the Laptev Sea are starting to look distinctly “warm” in the infra-red. Here’s a “false colour” image taken by the Terra satellite during a gap in the clouds:

We have reached the time of year when the SMOS “thin ice thickness” readings start being affected by surface melt, but let’s take a look anyway:

That area of the Laptev certainly appears to be either thin or melting.

Meanwhile on the Canadian side of the Arctic the fast ice off the Mackenzie Delta is starting to get damp, even though the river itself still looks to be fairly well frozen:

It will also be interesting to follow the progress of this large floe as it heads towards oblivion through the Fram Strait:

Continue reading Facts About the Arctic in May 2021 →

Facts About the Arctic in November 2020

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Arctic sea ice volume is of course far more important in the grand scheme of things. However sea extent is easier to measure, and the JAXA AMSR2 flavour thereof has now nudged into second place for the date above 2016:

[Edit – November 4th]

The PIOMAS gridded thickness numbers have been released, to reveal this end of October thickness map:

and these calculated volume graphs:

These show Arctic sea ice volume to be lowest for the date, even if extent has slipped into 2nd place.

For comparison purposes here too is the latest AWI CryoSat-2/SMOS merged thickness map:

Continue reading Facts About the Arctic in November 2020 →

Facts About the Arctic in October 2020

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Let’s start this somewhat belated article by looking at Arctic sea ice volume. The mid month PIOMAS gridded thickness numbers have been released to reveal these volume graphs:

Minimum volume for 2021 was 4.03 thousand km3 on September 17th, 2nd lowest in the PSC record.

Modelled volume is now in a “statistical tie” with 2012 for lowest on record for mid October. Here too is the PIOMAS thickness map:

Meanwhile for comparison purposes here is the first merged Cryosat-2/SMOS thickness map of the 2020/21 freezing season, hot off the presses at the Alfred Wegener Institute:

Continue reading Facts About the Arctic in October 2020 →

Facts About the Arctic in May 2020

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Let us begin this month’s report from the far north with the high resolution Arctic sea ice area and extent graphs based on the University of Hamburg’s AMSR2 concentration maps:

Area is currently lowest for the date in the AMSR2 record. After briefly occupying that position extent has increased over the last few days of April due to winds causing sea ice to move in the direction of the far North Atlantic:



The Alfred Wegener Institute has now finished reanalysing their CryoSat-2/SMOS thickness data, and the resulting volume graph looks like this:

“Measured” Arctic sea ice volume is the lowest in the CryoSat-2 era as we head towards the main 2020 melting season, which in my calendar at least begins on June 1st. The PIOMAS modelled volume numbers should be released shortly.

[Edit – May 5th]

The April 30th PIOMAS gridded thickness numbers have been released, and Wipneus has worked his usual magic. By way of comparison with the AWI metric:

Obviously differing from CryoSat-2/SMOS, PIOMAS has 2020 volume a long way above 2017, in amongst a gaggle of other years.

[Edit – May 13th]

The middle of May is rapidly approaching, so let’s start to set the scene for the forthcoming melting season. First off here are the hi res AMSR2 area and extent graphs:

Extent is currently significantly above 2016 due to the recent “dispersion” mentioned above, but area is very close to an all time low for the date.

Next take a look at the current northern hemisphere snow cover anomalies from the Rutgers University Snow Lab:

Whilst there is a positive anomaly near Hudson Bay, there are significant negative anomalies across Siberia and Alaska. This does not augur well for sea ice retention along both the Northern Sea Route and Northwest Passage by September 2020.

Watch this space!

Facts About the Arctic in April 2020

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This comes to you a couple of days early, but the clocks have just changed to British Summer Time in the once United Kingdom and there is news to impart.

JAXA Arctic sea ice extent has fallen to the lowest level for the date in their satellite era records going back to 1979. This graph shows every year since 2000:

The high resolution AMSR2 regional graphs make clear that the precipitous drop on the Pacific periphery has continued:

The current combined SMOS/SMAP Arctic sea ice “thinness” map makes clear that there is plenty more thin ice ready for melting in the Sea of Okhotsk and Baffin Bay:

There is also a large area of thin ice in the Laptev Sea, which will be interesting to watch once the 2020 melting season gets underway in earnest.

[Edit – April 1st]

Today is All Fools’ Day, but this is no joke. Thanks to the consistent polar vortex over the Northern Hemisphere winter there is currently an anomalous “ozone hole” over the North Pole. As recently described in Nature:

A vast ozone hole — probably the biggest on record in the north — has opened in the skies above the Arctic. It rivals the better-known Antarctic ozone hole that forms in the southern hemisphere each year.

Record-low ozone levels currently stretch across much of the central Arctic, covering an area about three times the size of Greenland. The hole doesn’t threaten people’s health, and will probably break apart in the coming weeks. But it is an extraordinary atmospheric phenomenon that will go down in the record books.

“From my point of view, this is the first time you can speak about a real ozone hole in the Arctic,” says Martin Dameris, an atmospheric scientist at the German Aerospace Center in Oberpfaffenhofen.

Here are the latest graphics from the “Arctic Ozone Watch” section of the NASA web site:

Observations made during the still ongoing MOSAiC expedition, have confirmed the satellite derived measurements:

This year, powerful westerly winds flowed around the North Pole and trapped cold air within a ‘polar vortex’. There was more cold air above the Arctic than in any winter recorded since 1979, says Markus Rex, an atmospheric scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Potsdam, Germany. In the chilly temperatures, the high-altitude clouds formed, and the ozone-destroying reactions began.

Researchers measure ozone levels by releasing weather balloons from observing stations around the Arctic (including the Polarstern icebreaker, which is frozen in sea ice for a year-long expedition). By late March, these balloons measured a 90% drop in ozone at an altitude of 18 kilometres, which is right in the heart of the ozone layer. Where the balloons would normally measure around 3.5 parts per million of ozone, they recorded only around 0.3 parts per million, says Rex. “That beats any ozone loss we have seen in the past,” he notes.

I’ve previously conjectured about the potential effect of the strong polar vortex on Northern Hemisphere snow cover this Spring, and here’s NOAA’s current snow extent graph:

JAXA extent’s precipitous recent decline has abated, and it’s now 5th lowest for the date in the satellite era:

[Edit – April 4th]

Here’s the March 31st PIOMAS Arctic sea ice gridded thickness map:

together with the traditional volume graph:

Wipneus comments on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum that:

Ice is thickening impressively against the Canadian Archipelago and North Greenland.

That is indeed the case with the PIOMAS “modelled” numbers, but is much less obvious in the latest CryoSat-2/SMOS “measured” thickness map where ice over 4 metres thick is still conspicuous by its absence North of Greenland:

Plus a bonus graph for “Turbulent Eddie”, who suggests that:

[There’s] not much thick ice on the East Coast of Greenland, indicating the increase was from reduced loss through the Fram Strait?

together with the latest AARI ice age map:

[Edit – April 6th]

Here’s the latest update of our novel NRT volume metric:

I’ve applied a crude correction to the still problematic NRT data so that it at least coincides with the reanalysed data on March 14th. Whilst we await the reanalysed numbers for the rest of March and early April it looks as though Arctic sea ice volume reached at least a temporary peak on March 20th 2020.

[Edit – April 19th]

Here’s another update of our novel NRT volume metric, still incorporating my “fudge factor”:

Note also this handy hint from Stefan Hendricks on Twitter:

[Edit – April 21st]

Wipneus has crunched the mid month PIOMAS gridded thickness numbers. Here’s the result:

The discrepancy between the PIOMAS model and the CryoSat-2 “reality” is still very evident.

[Edit – April 25th]

With another week’s worth of reanalysed data now processed, it now seems certain that the CS2/SMOS Arctic sea ice volume maximum was 18469 km³ on April 6th:

[Edit – April 28th]

The high resolution AMSR2 area and extent metrics are now both “lowest for the date” in the AMSR2 record:

JAXA/ViSHOP AMSR2 extent isn’t quite there yet:

The 2020 Maximum Arctic Sea Ice Extent

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As Zack Labe has recently pointed out, in 2015 the Arctic sea ice maximum extent based on the JAXA numbers had already occurred on February 15th:

Perhaps it’s time we started paying attention this year! However the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported a significantly later date in 2015:

On February 25, 2015, Arctic sea ice extent appeared to have reached its annual maximum extent, marking the beginning of the sea ice melt season. This year’s maximum extent not only occurred early; it is also the lowest in the satellite record. However, a late season surge in ice growth is still possible.

Each year we keep track of the assorted Arctic sea ice metrics over the next month or so, and they rarely agree on the date of maximum extent, and never agree on the sea ice extent on that date! The reason for that is explained in a 2017 paper entitled “Variability and trends in the Arctic Sea ice cover: Results from different techniques“:

Reports on the sea ice cover have been provided by different institutions using basically the same set of satellite data but different techniques for estimating key parameters such as ice concentration, ice extent, and ice area. In this study, a comparison of results from four different techniques that are frequently used shows significant disagreements in the characterization of the distribution of the sea ice cover primarily in areas that have a large fraction of new ice cover or significant amount of surface melt.

In due course we’ll look at the metrics from a variety of different institutions, but let’s start with JAXA, comparing 2020 with 2015 and the 2010s average:

Extent is clearly increasing just at the moment! Will the next peak prove to be the maximum for the year or will we have to wait another month or more to find out that value, as suggested by the average?

Compare and contrast JAXA extent with Wipneus’ high resolution AMSR2 extent and area:

Perhaps the 2020 maximum area has already been reached?

[Edit – February 25th]

Or perhaps not! We’re playing mix and match this morning, since Wipneus’s new numbers haven’t been released yet. Here UH AMSR2 high resolution Arctic sea ice area from February 23rd:

Plus JAXA extent for the 24th:

[Edit – February 27th]

Tony Heller’s latest sea ice themed article claims “Normal Sea Ice Extent At Both Poles”. Hence today’s JAXA extent graph includes the averages for previous decades:

Extent is evidently increasing once again, and is even more evidently well below what passed for “normal” in the twentieth century!

Let’s also compare the Pacific periphery:

with the Atlantic side of the Arctic Ocean:

The Bering and Okhotsk Seas will be sea ice free by the time September 2020 arrives. How about the Kara, Barents and particularly Greenland Seas though?

[Edit – February 29th]

Arctic sea ice maximum volume usually occurs in April, but nonetheless let’s keep an eye on the metric that most nearly measure the “amount” of sea ice left in the Arctic in 2020. Here’s our “measured” CryoSat-2/SMOS volume metric, using reanalysed data up to February 12th:

PIOMAS “modelled” volume for February should be released soon, but getting back to extent the JAXA flavour has been setting new highs over recent days:

whereas the NSIDC’s Charctic 5 day averaged extent has not!

[Edit – March 6th]

Here’s the February PIOMAS gridded Arctic sea ice thickness map, courtesy of Wipneus on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum:

plus the traditional modelled volume graph:

As angech has pointed out elsewhere, according to the PIOMAS team:

CryoSat-2 data show total volume for February 2020 substantially lower than PIOMAS with 2020 Febuary near record low levels over the 2011-2020 period

[Edit – March 19th]

The March mid month PIOMAS numbers have been crunched by Wipneus. Here’s how things look at the moment:

For comparison purposes here’s the current CryoSat-2/SMOS Arctic sea ice thickness map:

[Edit – March 20th]

After flatlining for a long time JAXA extent has posted significant declines for two days running. There’s been no official announcement from the NSIDC as yet, but it now seems safe to conclude that there won’t be a late surge in extent similar to 2010. Here’s the current JAXA graph:

plus NSIDC’s 5 day averaged extent:

Hence the (still provisional!) maximum numbers for 2020 are:

JAXA/VISHOP AMSR2 – 14.45 million square kilometres on March 3rd
NSIDC 5 day SSMIS – 15.05 million square kilometres on March 5th

The University of Hamburg’s JAXA AMSR2 concentration data seems to have suffered an outage over the crucial period. Hopefully the gaps will be filled in due course. However more recent regional graphs  reveal the following:

The recent declines in overall extent are evidently driven by declines on the Pacific periphery.

Where’s the Thickest Arctic Sea Ice Gone?

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In the absence of the usual mid month PIOMAS Arctic sea ice volume update I’m being moaned at by “angech” over on Judith Curry’s “Climate Etc.” blog:

Any ideas on why PIOMAS mid month update not out, other than not wanting to show a big recovery?

Unlike any of Judy’s denizens I checked out the comparatively new merged CryoSat-2 plus SMOS thickness maps from the Alfred Wegener Institute. “Measured” rather than “modelled” data must be a good thing surely?

Just in case there’s some significant difference between the “reanalysis” and “operational” versions of that product, here is the AWI’s most recent reanalysed Arctic sea ice thickness map, for the week ending January 11th:

together with the same date from the previous two years:

Make sure to take a close look at the white areas north of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago showing sea ice over 4 metres thick.

Over the winter of 2018/19 ASCAT revealed that there was a relentless movement of multi-year ice towards both the North Atlantic and the Beaufort Sea.

Not unexpectedly that meant that ice in the northern Barents Sea was slow to melt out in the summer of 2019:

whilst after a fast start the melt in the Beaufort Sea also suffered a “brief hiatus” in June before ultimately melting out almost completely as well:

Perhaps a significant amount of the multi-year ice that survived the winter of 2018/19 has now simply melted away in warm water, to be replaced by much less robust first year ice in the area between the North Pole and the Siberian coast? It will be very interesting to see what the next PIOMAS update in early February reveals.

[Edit – February 4th]

The next PIOMAS update referred to above has now arrived. Here’s the Polar Science Center’s graph:

Over on Climate Etc. angech is already exclaiming:

Strange it did go up a fair bit the old PIOMAS.
No publicity at the usual going down sites.

Actually it’s not at all strange, because thus far this winter the polar vortex has been remarkably well behaved. By and large cold air air has stayed in the Arctic. There hasn’t been much in the way of cold air intrusions into mid latitudes or warm air intrusions into the Arctic.

Hence it’s not at all surprising that the thickness of sea ice in the Arctic has been increasing slightly more quickly this winter than in other recent years. By way of some longer term context, here are the official Polar Science Center min/max trends:

[Edit – February 4th PM]

Wipneus has just released the January PIOMAS gridded thickness map. Here it is:

[Edit – February 5th]

As is all too frequently the case, AdR and other commenters below get very excited about trivial increases in sea ice extent without considering snow extent. One side effect of the lack of cold air outbreaks into mid latitudes so far this winter currently looks like this:

[Edit – February 6th]

The AWI and PIOMAS sea ice thickness maps above look somewhat different at first glance. That being the case, I’ve written a program to crunch the AWI numbers. Here’s the result:

The source code plus raw and processed data can be accessed via the Arctic Sea Ice Forum:

“CryoSat-2/SMOS Arctic Sea Ice Volume”

[Edit – February 10th]

Further support for my “polar vortex” theory, from Judah Cohen no less!

[Edit – February 16th]

Here’s the latest update of our novel NRT volume metric:

Please note that there is a known problem with the NRT data from January 31st onwards.

Here too are Wipneus’ latest high resolution AMSR2 area and extent graphs:

[Edit – February 18th]

Wipneus has released his usual mid month PIOMAS update on the Arctic Sea Ice Forum:

I am forced to ponder once again why the CryoSat-2/SMOS thickness “measured” numbers just above seem to be more at variance with PIOMAS in 2020 than in previous years:

[Edit – February 22nd]

Here’s another weekly NRT volume update:

This time I’ve left off the NRT data from February 6th onwards, since the “issue” referred to above obviously hasn’t been solved yet. As an added bonus here’s a graph showing the trends (or lack thereof) on 3 dates during the October to April freezing season:

Facts About the Arctic in October 2019

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Whilst we await the PIOMAS volume numbers which generally arrive around the 5th of each month, and before we look at graphs of extent, with the refreeze well under way some “measured” thickness maps are coming back! Here’s the first SMOS map this autumn:

Then of course there’s our usual Arctic wide high resolution AMSR2 area and extent graphs:

They reveal both metrics currently still second lowest (in the brief AMSR2 record) after 2012. It looks as though that may well change soon, particularly area.

The MOSAiC Expedition has started in earnest, with Polarstern and Akademik Fedorov in amongst the sea ice at long last:

However:

[Edit – October 3rd]

The near real time NSIDC monthly extent for September is 4.32 million km². Here’s the graph:

We’re eagerly awaiting the first ice mass balance buoy “near real time” data, but for now the 2019 PIOMAS minimum volume is expected to be revealed real soon now, so:

[Edit – October 5th]

As previously perfectly predicted, the PIOMAS numbers have arrived over at the ASIF. Here’s the thickness map for the end of September:

and the volume graph:

Since I’m involved is a heated “debate” about Arctic sea ice trends over at ex Prof. Judy’s, here’s an added bonus this month. The September volume trend:

[Edit – October 6th]

A marginally off topic excursion down under. The NSIDC 5 day average Antarctic sea extent looks to have peaked at 18.40 million km² on September 30th:

[Edit – October 7th]

The first of the MOSAiC Expedition’s Ice Mass Balance buoys has been installed, presumably on the ice floe Polarstern is moored to. It reveals sea ice that is currently just over 1 meter thick with a sprinkling of snow on top:

P.S MOSAiC IMB buoy #3 has gone live today too:

There’s currently only 0.5 meters of ice under this one.

[Edit – October 9th]

Here’s the latest annual PIOMAS “ice cube” animation from Andy Lee Robinson:

[Edit – October 10th]

Here’s the latest DMI “high Arctic” temperature graph:

Needless to say that means the DMI Freezing Degrees Days graph is tracking the lowest readings in the DMI’s records:

[Edit – October 11th]

MOSAiC IMB buoy #2 has now been installed and is beaming back data:

The sea ice at this location is decidedly on the thin side at present. A mere 20 cm or thereabouts!

[Edit – October 12th]

The JAXA ViSHOP web site is down at the moment, so by way of a change here is the University of Bremen’s AMSR2 based extent graph instead:

2019 Arctic sea ice is extent is now once again “lowest for the date” (since AMSRx satellite records began).

[Edit – October 14th]

The JAXA/ADS/ViSHOP web site is back online after being down over the weekend, presumably due to the effects of Typhoon Hagibis:

Sure enough the Japanese flavour of AMSR2 based extent is also now “lowest for the date”.

Plus a stunning image from Mike Horn and Borge Ousland as they attempt to “walk” to the North Pole then on towards Svalbard:

Mike and Borge’s current position was reported yesterday as: 89°35′51″N 140°30′32″E

[Edit – October 15th]

The latest SMOS Arctic sea ice “thinness” map shows sea ice starting to form on the shores of the Laptev Sea:

[Edit – October 16th]

The Centre for Polar Observation and Monitoring (CPOM) have just published the first CryoSat-2 Arctic sea ice thickness map of the 2019/20 freezing season:

Note in particular the dark blue area north of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

[Edit – October 20th]

Wipneus has just crunched the October mid month PIOMAS numbers. Here are the results. Not only the modelled Arctic sea ice thickness map:

but also the Arctic sea ice volume graph:

[Edit – October 21st]

Over on Twitter Judah Cohen suggests that:

Here’s the evidence:

I have been trying to bring the implications of this to the attention of the denizens of Judith Curry’s “Climate Etc.” blog, thus far with remarkably little success! This is the gist of my argument:

See:

“Warming of the interior Arctic Ocean linked to sea ice losses at the basin margins” Mary-Louise Timmermans, John Toole, Richard Krishfield (2018)

“Summer solar heat absorption by the surface waters has increased fivefold over the same time period, chiefly because of reduced sea ice coverage.”

“The effects of an efficient local ice-albedo feedback are thus not confined to the surface ocean/sea ice heat budget but, in addition, lead to increased heat accumulation in the ocean interior that has consequences far beyond the summer season.”

“In the coming years, however, excess Beaufort Gyre halocline heat will give rise to enhanced upward heat fluxes year-round, creating compound effects on the system by slowing winter sea ice growth.”

Watch this space!