Re: Historic ASI Extent, Daily Records
(Don't know if this is the best place to post this, so if not, please move.)
I was looking at recent years' new records being in mind of my Aug 2015 prediction of new record ASI lows or near record lows for 2016-17 period (two years follwing an El Nino.) 2016 was the second lowest, as we all know. However, it also had extensive new records in the spring and fall months. since 2015, I've always wondered if these numbers of total record days might have some sort of important or useful data embedded, but have never checked.
Today I was poking around and got curious how often new daily records are set year-on-year. Using JAXA's interactive chart I got a rather startling surprise. Using 1979 as the baseline, every single year has had a least a few daily record lows. Every. Year.
That, to me, is unexpected. I just never thought about it, but see it as making the overall trend more robust than it seems just from the yearly low trend.
How many years set new yearly lows using '79 as the baseline (though it seems likely to have been lower than '78)?
'84 (5 yrs)
'85 (1 yr)
'90 (5 yrs)
'95 (5 yrs)
'99 (4 yrs)
'02 (3 yrs)
'05 (3 yrs)
'07 (2 yrs)
'12 (5 yrs)
Currently six years since the last new low. Interestingly, the shorter periods of new lows was indicative of stability, with relatively small changes giving us new lows with the downward trend. then '07 and '12 changed things a lot, with '12 clearly being really anomalous. Of course, both those last years had the dipole set up blowing ice out Fram Strait.
Short version: We consistently had new ASI summer lows since we started tracking this.