Given the compactness figures 2018 is about 8% below last year, so without any further melting a reversion to last year's value would result in a drop of extent by ~500,000 km^2! There's a lot that could still happen, the area drop in the Central Arctic which is ongoing causes me concern.
Assuming that the compactness has not been affected by melt ponding masquerading as open water.
If we've had extensive melt ponding in June, then the instances of larger melt ponds being counted as open water will be correspondingly higher. Normally, by the end of June, they have drained and we have a clearer picture.
It's clear that we had extensive melt ponding in both the NW passage and ESS during June, areas which have returned to solid ice afterwards.
It certainly looks like there will be extensive loss in extent in July, simply by the outlying ice finally melting out due to normal warming. Whether that becomes extensive pull back from the coast where we have landlocked ice, or not, is something we will have to wait and see.
Right now the NSIDC Chartic shows 2018 trending towards 2SD territory within the next two weeks and dropping below 2015 in the next week or so.
More waiting. But I am very interested in the NW passage, CAA and ESS ice which looked like it was a goner, only to rebound as clear solid ice on the Bremen maps.
If you take a very vertical view, it does look very good for the ice. If you take a more horizontal view, then it looks a lot worse.
But the point is this. If we reach August and are hovering around 2SD on NSIDC extent, then August doesn't have enough heat to make massive changes. Storms, on the other hand, are an entirely different thing.
Latest sunspot data for the last month. It may not be a big change, however, as things are in the Arctic, it is now sensitive to even small changes in input.
# Sunspot Stanford GOES15
# Radio SESC Area Solar X-Ray ------ Flares ------
# Flux Sunspot 10E-6 New Mean Bkgd X-Ray Optical
# Date 10.7cm Number Hemis. Regions Field Flux C M X S 1 2 3
#---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2018 06 10 70 0 0 0 -999 A1.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 06 11 70 0 0 0 -999 A2.3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 06 12 70 12 10 1 -999 A2.6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 06 13 71 16 60 0 -999 A3.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 06 14 72 16 30 0 -999 A2.7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 06 15 71 13 10 0 -999 A2.5 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
2018 06 16 71 13 10 0 -999 A2.1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 06 17 71 15 20 0 -999 A2.5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 06 18 74 28 20 1 -999 A3.5 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
2018 06 19 77 41 80 1 -999 A5.1 0 0 0 2 0 0 0
2018 06 20 82 54 180 0 -999 A8.1 0 0 0 9 0 0 0
2018 06 21 82 41 190 0 -999 A8.5 1 0 0 1 0 0 0
2018 06 22 80 41 180 0 -999 A9.3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 06 23 77 34 190 0 -999 A9.3 0 0 0 4 0 0 0
2018 06 24 75 16 100 0 -999 B1.0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0
2018 06 25 73 14 40 0 -999 A6.4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 06 26 71 12 20 0 -999 A3.8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 06 27 70 0 0 0 -999 A2.9 0 0 0 1 0 0 0
2018 06 28 70 0 0 0 -999 A2.2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 06 29 69 0 0 0 -999 A1.8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 06 30 69 0 0 0 -999 A1.5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 07 01 68 0 0 0 -999 A1.4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 07 02 67 0 0 0 -999 A1.5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 07 03 68 0 0 0 -999 A1.4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 07 04 68 0 0 0 -999 A1.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 07 05 68 0 0 0 -999 A0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 07 06 71 0 0 0 -999 A1.8 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 07 07 72 0 0 0 -999 A3.7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 07 08 72 0 0 0 -999 A3.7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2018 07 09 73 0 0 0 -999 A3.2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0