I think she is looking for insights, not providing them.
Doh! I hadn't finished my first cup of coffee yet. I thought it was a URL problem.
Sorry for being dense Kat. Thanks Sebastian.
Sebastian is right and I would add, as other have, that extent is not a good indicator without added data for context, particularly during melting. The extent number doesn't differentiate between 100% ice and 40% ice, but it must be above 15%.
As sea ice concentration drops, as is happening now, there is a lot of space between individual floes, giving the ice plenty of room to move. A little bit of wind can quickly and easily do two things:
- It can compact sparse ice into a tight area which means the extent drops, even though there is no loss of ice.
- It can spread out existing ice, giving an appearance of more ice, and a higher extent, but if it is too spread out, it falls below the 15% threshold and "disappears" as far as NSIDC is concerned.
The dispersal of ice will hide the fact that ice has melted, giving the impression that melting has slowed or stopped.
So, theoretically, you could have 100 sq km at 100% turn into 500 sq km at 20% and then expand a bit more and vanish, with no change in actual ice volume.
All of this can happen very quickly, creating a confusing picture.