JAXA ARCTIC EXTENT :- 5,997,752 km2(July 30, 2019)
On average, over 3/4 of extent loss completed.
- Extent is lowest in the satellite record (43 days this year), extent is 134 k below 2012, 537 k below 2016.
- Extent loss on this day 78 k, 10 k more than the average loss on this day of 68 k.
- Extent loss from maximum 8,273 k, 587 k (7.6%) greater than the average of 7,686 k loss from maximum by this day,
- On average 77.8% of the melting season done, with 45 days to average date of minimum (13 September).
The Perils of Projections.
**Average remaining melt would give a minimum of 3.80 million km2, 2nd lowest in the satellite record, 0.62 million km2 above the 2012 low of 3.18 million km2 and 0.22 million below the 2nd lowest in 2016 of 4.02 million km2.
Ice Melt Outlook The peak days of daily melt are past. From now to minimum, on average daily extent loss will initially slowly reduce, this reduction in daily loss gradually accelerating on the approach to minimum.
Over the next 5 days Greenland, Baffin Bay and the CAA will still still be warm, and at times hot. The CAA may well get some rain.
It looks like there will be little or no export of ice down the Fram into the Greenland Sea, though on the Russian side winds may tend to push ice into the Barents,
In the last 14 days the average extent loss per day has been just over 100k. The June volume data persuaded me to drop my guesstimate for the minimum to below 4 million km2 from exactly 4 million km2. So far this seems to have been a sensible decision. Indeed, my June guess of 3.75 to 4.25 million km2 may be at risk, i.e. too high.
There is even a possibility that my July guess of 3.5 to 4 million km2 is also too high. However, this would require remaining melt to follow the pattern of 2016 at something like 15% above average.
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