Here is a chart and table I prepared earlier this year based on PIOMAS volume data... <snip>
Wow, Oren. 2007 is jaw dropping. I mean, really. If any of the experts are lurking around the ASIF this is the time to show your cards. Calling Drs. Alley, Birkel, Box, Dethloff, Goose, Meier, Notz, Mayewski, Overland, Polyak, Scambos, Serreze, Shuppe, Stroeve, Wadhams, Zhang, and all the rest. WTF, call Dr. Ruth too. Sadly, Dr. Konrad Steffen is off-duty.
You can weigh in under a pseudonym if association with this scruffy lot is hazardous to your professional reputation. Dr. A-Team, please report to the operating room! Patient #2007 lost weight all winter and suffered heavy bleeding all summer! We need a diagnosis.
Assuming minimum Volume in 2020 will be no higher than 2019, a quick trip to Excel suggests that the Late Summer 2020 melt was ca. 9.02 M km3 which would be a new record, leaving 2012 in the dust (for that period).
...and that the 2020 Summer Total melt would be ca. 19.01 Mkm3, just 0.26M short of 2012. All that from an impressive GAAC and a short-lived semi-GAC in 2020, but without any lightening strikes like the GAC 2012.
With the day 266 to 266 framing, 2012 takes a step back, and 2016 a step forward. But 2007 is revealed to be a Monster Performance. It was like Tiger Woods at the 1997 Masters Tournament just crushing the competition. (That was more than golf, it was a great day for humankind at a private club that barred black golfers until 1975, but I digress...)
I'm going to have to go back and re-read those Friv dipole posts from this summer. Now I know why Neven, Friv and others get so itchy when it looks like a dipole might set up.
Maybe we need a new Glossary entry: Dipole = Atmospheric Ice Eating Monster.