NSIDC Total Area as at 2 July 2019 (5 day trailing average) 6,728,715 km2 Total Area 6,728,715 km2 -412,936 km2 < 2010's average. -440,190 k < 2018 -1,000,255 k < 2000's average. Total Area Change -109 k loss Peripheral Seas -14 k loss Central Seas__ -72 k loss Other Seas___ -23 k loss Peripheral Seas Bering _______ -0 k loss Baffin Bay____ -10 k loss Greenland____ 4 k gain Barents ______ -8 k loss CAB Seas Beaufort_____ -14 k loss CAA_________ 7 k gain East Siberian__ -22 k loss Central Arctic_ -7 k loss Kara_________ -12 k loss Laptev_______ 0 k gain Chukchi______ -25 k loss Other Seas Okhotsk______ -3 k loss St Lawrence___ -0 k loss Hudson Bay___ -20 k loss
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Area loss 109k,
ZEROK MORE/LESS than the 2010's average loss of 109 k on this day.
Total area 2nd? lowest[/b], (186 k LESS than 2016, and 137k greater than 2012 (and now 23k LESS than 2010. 2010 is now another dead soldier fallen by the wayside on the retreat from Moscow).
2012 is the front runner as regards area again.
Other StuffWeatherA messy picture but mostly unchanged. GFS showing temperature anomalies in a narrow and very slightly lower temperature range of +0.6 to +1.6 degrees celsius. with a mostly modest +ve anomaly over most of the Arctic Ocean for most of the time.
The CAA, Baffin Bay and Hudson Bay are mostly warm, while Western Canada stays mostly coldish.
High +ve anomalies most of the time in Central Siberia and Western Siberia contrasting with long periods of cooler weather over land bordering the ESS.
By Friday Alaska and the far Eastern Siberian Chukotka Autonomous Okrug warm up and stay warm.
The GFS 5 day wind outlook from GFS still show persistent strongish southerly winds from The North Pacific entering the Arctic Ocean via the Bering Strait, but now bending more towards the Alaskan shore. This combined with warmth must impact the Chukchi and the Beaufort to the West and maybe the ESS.
Today's area losses in those seas seem to confirm that trend
This 5 day outlook also shows persistent even stronger winds from Western Siberia travelling across the Arctic into the North Atlantic. This wind stays West (looking it from a Russian view) of the island chain stretching from the Russian shore at Ostrov Bol'shevik via Franz Josef Land and Svalbard to the NE corner of Greenland and then down the East coast of Greenland. i.e. likely to help clear out the Kara and Barents and shovel ice into the Greenland Sea to die. I don't see it significantly pulling ice towards the North Atlantic from the CAB. Indeed the high in the middle of the CAB may send ice north of Greenland from East to West towards the Lincoln Sea. Much of the central arctic also looking dry.
The Kara and the Barents seas are losing ice area, the Greenland Sea gaining.
A complicated picture inadequately described above.
A cliff or not a cliffWe are in the period of maximum daily area loss that lasts until late July.
Area losses have ticked up a lot in the last week, and now moderated a bit. But being a five day trailing average, above average area losses will continue for 2 or 3 days at minimum.
If this rate of loss is continued, in about a week 2019 could/would/should/will/will not (delete as applicable) be in pole position (briefly?) again.
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