My last speculation is - all other things being equal - that minimum will be later than average this year (October 1 - only half-joking).
Daring! The decadal trend 1979-2010 (Charctix interactive extent below) was towards a later minimum, but that reversed somewhat in the last decade (2011-2018). This was counterintuitive to me. But maybe if ice melts so far back that there is open ocean close to the pole, then that far north open ocean refreezes quickly as winter approaches??
That is true - but sumfinks gotta give, sometime.
Meanwhile, how about a grenade?
DIspersion vs ConcentrationA lot of talk about how mobile broken up ice can make extent data greater than reality (15% rule, NSIDC 625 km2 pixels) - especially this year. The convention is to look at concentration, i.e. area divided by extent to see what is going on.
I thought, as we are talking about dispersion, let's try dispersion instead, i.e. extent divided by area. This also has the advantage of a larger number divided by a smaller number making the differences more marked. I attach the first graph that looks at all Arctic Seas. A ratio of 100% would be solid ice, a ratio of 2 would mean extent dispersed over twice the actual ice there as measured by area.
It is obvious that as the years go by dispersion increases markedly. It is also obvious that something weird happened in 2012.
2012 and the Great Arctic Cyclone (GAC)- & ArithmeticConvention has it that the GAC smashed up the ice and sent it all over the place. Did it?
By end July 2012 Arctic Sea Ice was well on its way to a record low. Area was decreasing even faster than extent and thus the dispersion ratio increased strongly to record levels in early August not seen before or since. Thin fragmented dispersed ice everywhere.
Then from August 2nd to August 14 was the GAC. From August 9th to end August dispersion crashed from nearly 170% to the 2010's average of 155%. This means area loss was below extent loss. The GAC did not disperse the ice, it shoved it together. Concentration (compaction) increased.
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Contrast this with 2016. Dispersion increased to above 2012 levels until the sea ice minimum.
What will 2019 do? On this melting season thread most say - melt.
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ps: Up above someone posted the dread DMI Sea Ice Thickness graph. I thought that one had a health warning (even more so for their volume graph?)?