Has anyone been wondering yet what monthly decrease PIOMAS will report next week? I know I have.
Just like last month I've been trying to get a feel for what's possible by looking at average August weather conditions in previous years. I made this temperature+sea level pressure map, with years following a ranking based on PIOMAS monthly loss (the loss in km3 is noted below the year in question), with 2015 at the bottom:
When it comes to SLP, 2015 resembles 2011 most, but 2011 had higher average temperatures over the CAB. 2011 lost 2372 km3 during August, but at the same time 2011 had 1625 km3 less volume at the start of August compared to this year.
Temeprature-wise 2015 looks similar to 2009, but 2009 had much stronger cyclone activity during August. Mind you, 2015 runs only up to August 26th, so the recent cyclone might still change the average somewhat, although not much I expect. 2009 lost 2578 km3 during August, but also had 1209 km3 more volume than this year at the start of August.
Given all this I don't expect August to see a loss of much over 2500 km3, unless PIOMAS has some melting momentum factor from July that bleeds through into August. Of course, a lot of MYI has disappeared during the month, not just the 'arm', but perhaps also in the region where ice is oldest and thickest (north of the CAA), where there has been widespread fragmentation and dispersal in the past couple of weeks. I don't know if PIOMAS has a resolution that picks up on that.
So yeah, I'd say around 2500 km3, not enough to dip below 2013, even though with 2221 km3 it lost relatively little volume during August.