Arctic Refreeze Discussion: 2014/2015

[helorime]

Meanwhile it stays cold in the great lakes area of the U.S.  Interetesting that this is the 2nd year of this odd weather pattern. It is substantially colder in Youngstown Ohio today than it is in Barrow Alaska. 

[viddaloo]

Icelook feb20: Average extent 6^th lowest in 10 weeks, average volume will be 6^th in 38 days, and p1k (Piomas minus 1000) will be 4^th in 2 days. Refreeze has now been slower than last year 7 days in a row, in turn changing the outlook significantly. Today we even have the slowest February refreeze to date on IJIS record (see bottom table). 2015 extent has till now been roughly the same as last year, leading to the inconclusive annual average extent graph, going neither up nor down. This may change in the coming weeks, as 2014 climbs to its relatively late March 20 maximum extent of 14,448,416 km². 2015 volume has been at least 950 km³ higher than last year every single day, therefore the annual average volume graph is still just up, up, up. Next week we may get an estimate for a peak, but so far it's nowhere in sight. Such a peak would most likely require a significant abrupt plunge in daily volume figures some time during spring or summer, if not in the shape of actual volume losses, then at least in (much) slower refreeze than last year. In any case, it will be interesting to see official Piomas volume figures in two weeks' time.



[chart faq]

[Bob Wallace]

Meanwhile it stays cold in the great lakes area of the U.S.  Interetesting that this is the 2nd year of this odd weather pattern. It is substantially colder in Youngstown Ohio today than it is in Barrow Alaska. 

And it's the second year in a row in which Northern California has had no winter.  Normally, where I live, we get a lot of snow.  Three times in the last ten years I've been snowed in for a month or longer.  (Snowshoe out or call the Cat.)

Last year there was one minor snowfall in October and one more in the spring (normal stuff). None at all from November to March.  This year there has been none at all. 

I think we can accurately say that weather patterns have been screwed up.  But on average things are warmer with more screwing up coming to where we live.

[LRC1962]

Meanwhile it stays cold in the great lakes area of the U.S.  Interetesting that this is the 2nd year of this odd weather pattern. It is substantially colder in Youngstown Ohio today than it is in Barrow Alaska. 

Around the Great Lakes it is cold now, but earlier in the winter it was mild. That is why the systems coming from the west have been hitting Boston with so much snow. The GL have not frozen that well and therefore any system going across them is picking up a lot of moisture.

[Jim Hunt]

Espen's eagle eyes have spotted some "Shock News" from Greenland. IJIS extent is no longer "lowest for the date", but there is this:

"Massive Calving of Jakobshavn Isbræ"

[Wipneus]

The Race to Fram Strait , north of Greenland.

(click to animate)

[jdallen]

The Race to Fram Strait , north of Greenland.

(click to animate)

~15,000KM2/Day, of the thickest, oldest ice in the arctic, out the door, on the way to inevitable oblivion.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Looking at the most recent ECMWF runs, I think there is potential to see some losses in extent later this week and into next weekend.

We're now seeing the start of a potentially abnormally mild pattern, with warm air flowing into the Arctic via both the Bering Strait and Barents seas. This pattern looks like strengthening over the coming week.

By Wednesday, we can see the strong blocking highs present both in western Russia and the Gulf of Alaska. This will steer increasingly mild southerlies into the Arctic pushing back and potentially melting some ice, especially in the Barents sea early on.





By the end of the week/early weekend, the pattern strengthens, dragging long draw southerlies into the Arctic, squeezing out much of the cold.





The pattern continues to worsen by the start of next week, with the southerlies likely causing compactions and some melting in the Bering and Barents/Kara regions. Throughout all of this, slight gains in the Baffin sea region may offset things slightly, but probably not enough to balance things out





If this patterns lasts well into March, I think we could see a very early maximum this year

[Jim Hunt]

Note that Sean@CCI-Reanalyzer has recently reinstated the Arctic closeups:

http://GreatWhiteCon.info/resources/arctic-sea-ice-graphs/#CCITemp

Here's this morning's anomalies:

[Neven]

Thanks, BFTV and JH, very interesting.

[Siffy]

Is that anomaly map really showing zones in the arctic which are +20C hotter than normal? 

Is there a version of that map showing actual temperatures?

[viddaloo]

Is that anomaly map really showing zones in the arctic which are +20C hotter than normal? 

Is there a version of that map showing actual temperatures?

Yes on both accounts. And in a way, twenty plus or minus anomalies are the 'norm' in the Arctic, there's always one area or other that has them, so in that sense, too, the Arctic is one of the most extreme — and interesting! — places to follow, weatherwise.

[Jim Hunt]

Is there a version of that map showing actual temperatures?

Just click my link above! Alternatively here's the current one. The North Pole is currently warmer than large areas of North America.

[Jester Fish]

You can see the warm air pumps running North along the West and East coasts of N. America.  They correspond well with the "warm" air illustrated by the circulation over the North Pole.

[viddaloo]

Icelook feb25: Average extent 4^th lowest in 37 days, average volume will be 6^th in 11 weeks, and p1k (Piomas minus 1000) will be 5^th in 44 weeks. With an annual average extent drop like the one for the previous 7 days, getting down to 10.32 mill should take only 4 or 5 days, and that will be the lowest we've been during 2015. The prognosis graph has this happening on Friday Feb 27th. This weekly pace persisting for a month would also lose over ten grand a month, taking us down to the 10.31 line by the end of March. This all presupposes declining daily extent and taking advantage of the late (March 20) yearly maximum of 2014 and the record early February 15 yearly maximum this year. Could it be that in really exceptionally badass years like 2007, there *is* a trend for early extent maxima, and could 2015 be an extra naughty player in this league? Nothing but time will tell, fellas, but 2015 could be the wrong year to go off the grid. Volume is a different dance entirely, and no–one knows exactly how much ice there is at this point. We could be back close to end–2007 levels like the graph shows, or we could be closer to the green p1k. Usually, after a rebound period, annual average volume climbs one or two positions on the (least) icy leaderboard before extent does. This implies we could be 4th lowest, or go 4th lowest, before annual average extent.


[chart faq]

[Lord M Vader]

While we are about 1 month at most from the SIE maximum in the Arctic and discuss whether we'll see a very early maximum, things are interesting on the other pole. Due to Bremens sea ice graphs, the SIE minima seems to already have occurred at Antarctica and also at a very to extremely early date. Anyone who knows the extreme dates for Antarctica?

Best, LMV

[Laurent]

I am not sure but I would say we are at the minimum or not far...?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.recent.antarctic.png

You can have more here : http://greatwhitecon.info/resources/antarctic-sea-ice-graphs/

[viddaloo]

This all presupposes declining daily extent and taking advantage of the late (March 20) yearly maximum of 2014 and the record early February 15 yearly maximum this year. Could it be that in really exceptionally badass years like 2007, there *is* a trend for early extent maxima, and could 2015 be an extra naughty player in this league?

Studying *centuries* more generally, i find that once a year has gotten its first century drop (in IJIS extent), it is likely (83%) that it won't see a counteracting century *gain* for another 108–214 days (September at the earliest). Data also shows that if you survive the next 5 days after the year's first century drop without a century *gain* setback, then 100% of the years in the IJIS record give you *drop only* centuries until the end of the melt season. 2015 has gone 7 days since its first century drop, and so far any century gains before September seem unlikely.

Note also: 2007 had its first century drop on day 165. 2015 was 117 days ahead of that. 2007 had a (then) record amount of 27 century drops, beaten of course by 2012's 40 drops (but 17 of those 40 came ahead of day 165, which was 2007's first century drop).

Code: [Select]

2003/23 -117412 2003/27 114180 (x)
2004/72 -134385 2004/267 117886 195
2005/153 -119936 2005/273 102151 120
2006/115 -104556 2006/276 101255 161
2007/165 -101000 2007/273 107060 108
2008/107 -106549 2008/273 157121 166
2009/68 -116473 2009/282 110026 214
2010/123 -108481 2010/268 116753 145
2011/166 -106743 2011/274 103984 108
2012/67 -102529 2012/261 105906 194
2013/104 -120309 2013/277 140031 173
2014/67 -120789 2014/71 115282 (x)
2015/48 -113505

[iceman]

Looking at the most recent ECMWF runs, I think there is potential to see some losses in extent later this week and into next weekend.

We're now seeing the start of a potentially abnormally mild pattern, with warm air flowing into the Arctic via both the Bering Strait and Barents seas. This pattern looks like strengthening over the coming week.

............

If this patterns lasts well into March, I think we could see a very early maximum this year

Good call on Bering and Barents, BFTV.  I think the main reason we're not seeing losses in aggregate extent is that the anomaly was already extremely low, owing mainly to Oshkosh.  It's now back to re-freeze there - if erratically - and additional extent gains next few days in Baffin/Newfoundland (as you noted) and St. Lawrence will likely offset any further losses in Bering and Barents.  Net: no extent max any time soon.
      I am curious, however, to see whether the combination of northerly winds through Bering Strait, with concurrent acceleration of ice transport through Fram Strait, becomes a set-up for an early volume max.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Good call on Bering and Barents, BFTV.  I think the main reason we're not seeing losses in aggregate extent is that the anomaly was already extremely low, owing mainly to Oshkosh.  It's now back to re-freeze there - if erratically - and additional extent gains next few days in Baffin/Newfoundland (as you noted) and St. Lawrence will likely offset any further losses in Bering and Barents.  Net: no extent max any time soon.
      I am curious, however, to see whether the combination of northerly winds through Bering Strait, with concurrent acceleration of ice transport through Fram Strait, becomes a set-up for an early volume max.

It was around now I was expecting the measures to start showing a drop, so I guess we'll see how the weekend goes.

Those southerlies are pulling some pretty impressive positive anomalies over the Bering strait already

[BornFromTheVoid]

Lowest on record for JAXA, down almost 100k in the last 2 days.

No sign of a substantial improvement in conditions over the Bering strait until early next week, while things remain mild with persistent southerlies over the Barents/Kara region for the foreseeable future, extending up into 80N in a few days.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Big drop on the daily NSIDC extent too, making it 100k in the last 2 days and 160k in the last 5.

Going by the new JAXA imagery,the vast majority of the loss is from the Bering sea, with Barents and Kara contributing a small loss. I'd expect to see the Bering sea stabilise and perhaps see some small increases early next week, but Barents and Kara to start seeing some bigger losses.

[DavidR]

February 27th marked the maximum NSIDC extent in 2008.  Since 2007 five of the increases from Feb 27th to the maximum would leave the extent well below the 2011 record low of 14.671 Mkm^2, only two would take the ice past the current second lowest extent in 2007 and none would take it  near the third lowest in 2014.

With the weather predictions for the next  couple of weeks it  looks like the melting season will start from a very low base.  It  will be very interesting to see what PIOMAs does for February

[jdallen]

With the weather predictions for the next  couple of weeks it  looks like the melting season will start from a very low base.  It  will be very interesting to see what PIOMAs does for February

Climate Reanalizer (University of Maine) models show an absolutely astonishing plume of warm air intruding all the way to the pole in about six days.  The model shows temperatures arriving at 90N of just below freezing.  It will affect most of the central arctic basin, as well as the Barents and Kara (which gets the same or even warmer). 

It looks like temperatures could be very close to that necessary to permit actual melt.

[Wipneus]

Big drop on the daily NSIDC extent too, making it 100k in the last 2 days and 160k in the last 5.

Going by the new JAXA imagery,the vast majority of the loss is from the Bering sea, with Barents and Kara contributing a small loss.

The NSIDC loss is mostly caused by a drop in the south Greenland Sea: -69k. Bering much less in second place.

Regional Arctic Sea Ice Extent from NSIDC NASA Team concentration data
Date: 2015-02-27 12:00  Values in 1000 km^2  Anomalies are from the 1981-2010 mean values

Extent (value, one day change, anomaly):
   Central Arctic Basin       East Siberian Sea              Laptev Sea
  4456.6   +0.0    +3.6    935.7   +0.0    +0.0    733.9   +0.0    +0.0
               Kara Sea             Barents Sea           Greenland Sea
   900.3   +0.0    +1.0    669.0   -1.3  -174.9    627.6  -68.5  -146.6
Baffin/Newfoundland Bay            St. Lawrence              Hudson Bay
  1366.9  -11.2   -23.5    243.6   -2.4    +9.6   1232.3   +0.0    +0.0
   Canadian Archipelago            Beaufort Sea             Chukchi Sea
   747.0   +0.0    +0.0    527.6   +0.0    +0.0    602.9   +0.0    -0.0
             Bering Sea          Sea of Okhotsk                   Lakes
   489.6  -22.7  -256.8    695.4   +9.8  -378.5    312.8   +2.9   +77.8
          Other regions       Total (ex. lakes)
   142.8  +13.1  -115.6  14371.1  -83.2 -1081.5



 Jaxa AMSR2 data for 20150227 is similar, with Baffin dropping at the same rate as the Bering region.

Extent:
           Arctic Basin       East Siberian Sea              Laptev Sea
                    7.1                    -2.2                     0.6
               Kara Sea             Barents Sea           Greenland Sea
                   -3.7                    -0.2                   -72.0
Baffin/Newfoundland Bay            St. Lawrence              Hudson Bay
                  -21.3                     3.4                    -4.6
   Canadian Archipelago            Beaufort Sea             Chukchi Sea
                    4.7                    -0.4                    -0.8
             Bering Sea          Sea of Okhotsk            Total Extent
                  -22.3                    -0.7                  -112.4

[viddaloo]

If my scripts didn't just go crazy, this year has a 35% lower refreeze to date than record year 2012.

35%.

And we may not reach the 14 million mark for the first time in recent history!

Wow. As I said recently in my so–called 'Icelook': 2015 could be the wrong year to go off the grid.

PS: If we break it down, January only fell 16% short of 2012. February on itself had 69% lower refreeze than 2012. That is *collapse*! February has collapsed, folks.

[Neven]

Another comparison, OSISAF sea ice concentration on February 26th:



The North Pole seems to be surrounded by first-year ice. 2012 is similar, but less pronounced. Let's see how far the ice edge goes this year...

And also, like Wipneus has been showing in the PIOMAS thread, quite a bit of volume is sitting right in front of the Fram abyss, more than in previous years. I wonder what volume does, when all of it is flushed out?

[Shared Humanity]

You can also clearly see the effects of Nares export this freeze season.

[iceman]

The NSIDC loss is mostly caused by a drop in the south Greenland Sea: -69k. Bering much less in second place.
   ....

That's quite a remarkable effect (mainly of wind?) in the Greenland Sea, along with a big cumulative drop in Bering.

I'll put in a guess of an extent max on 15th March, with a surge from Baffin/Newfoundland followed by late extent growth elsewhere.

[LRC1962]

That's quite a remarkable effect (mainly of wind?) in the Greenland Sea, along with a big cumulative drop in Bering.

From Canada Ice service
Eastern Arctic

Summary for October 17 to November 4.
Average air temperatures were above normal values over most locations
except below normal over Gulf of Boothia. Ice formation was near normal
over most locations except 1 week later than normal over Baffin Bay.

Weather forecast for November 5 to 30.
Average air temperatures will be above normal over the whole area.

Do not know if they archive at all but did see the Feb forecast earlier and it was the basic same story. It was very windy as I recall from comments elsewhere, but compound that with above average temps that ice can be easily moved.  Your ice also will be mushier. This winter has been very poor for ice manufacturing and I do not think March wil be much better at least on the Canadian side based on average temps from Feb-Apr.

[viddaloo]

I'll put in a guess of an extent max on 15th March, with a surge from Baffin/Newfoundland followed by late extent growth elsewhere.

It's certainly possible, but I just don't see it coming, iceman. Before the 15th we'll have 1 or even 2 new century drops, taking us down to 13.7 or 13.6 million km² by IJIS, making it very hard to reach the Feb 15 max of 13.94 ever again.

[viddaloo]

2007 & 2012: These two had the most 'century' (>100,000 km² daily) drops and also went lowest in IJIS extent. They both lost over 3 million km² in century drops alone, a feat not seen by any other melt season, and ended up in September as the only two years below 4.2 million.

This display shows century gains in blue and century drops in red. The big number in the center is IJIS extent in millions for the stated date.

As you can see, 2015 currently is lowest on extent and has a lead on the two 'champions', both in century drop numbers and ice lost during those drops.

2012 had a century gain on March 1st, making the total so far this year 3. In comparison, 2015 has had only one century gain.

[iceman]

I'll put in a guess of an extent max on 15th March, with a surge from Baffin/Newfoundland followed by late extent growth elsewhere.

It's certainly possible, but I just don't see it coming, iceman. Before the 15th we'll have 1 or even 2 new century drops, taking us down to 13.7 or 13.6 million km² by IJIS, making it very hard to reach the Feb 15 max of 13.94 ever again.

Let me try a little regional decomposition, A) for extent and B) for volume.
    A)  In regions with low extent anomaly (mainly Bering and Okhotsk), the greater-than-normal open water is losing lots of heat - notwithstanding relatively high SSTs.  So the anomaly there is likely to trend up in the next couple of weeks. 
         In Barents the anomaly is also low - relative to climatology if not to recent years - yet looks to drop farther in the near term.  Offset by extent gains in Baffin/Newfoundland.
   B)  Some of the heat radiated from water to air is moving northward over Chukchi, Beaufort and CAB.  It will retard volume growth especially for FIY, where thermodynamic growth accounts for much of the volume gain late in the freeze season.
   The unusual heat advection is why I'm looking for a relatively late extent max along with early volume max.

[jdallen]

Iceman - generally sound reasoning, but I'll quibble mildly with your point (A).

While additional exposure in the Bering, Okotsch and lesser degree, Barents an Kara, will facilitate greater heat loss, we are now late enough in the season where that will be offset by steadily increasing insolation.

So, unlike earlier in the season, that will balance the radiative loss. However, we will still have the heat being imported inti the Chukchi, Beaufort and basin generally.

[Neven]

Things are getting really interesting now wrt the max:

[slow wing]

Interesting question just popped into my head: has anyone ever modelled the total heat required to melt all the Arctic sea ice on any specific day?

Or, more work but more useful, a map over the Arctic of the total heat per square metre to melt the ice?

It would be similar to an average ice thickness map but there would be variations due to ice temperature and it could account for partial melting and different ice concentration fractions.

Then that could be compared with a predicted or average heat delivery to the ice over the melt season at any position to predict which parts would or wouldn't melt out.

Could that be practical and/or useful?

[Richard Rathbone]

Interesting question just popped into my head: has anyone ever modelled the total heat required to melt all the Arctic sea ice on any specific day?

Or, more work but more useful, a map over the Arctic of the total heat per square metre to melt the ice?

It would be similar to an average ice thickness map but there would be variations due to ice temperature and it could account for partial melting and different ice concentration fractions.

Then that could be compared with a predicted or average heat delivery to the ice over the melt season at any position to predict which parts would or wouldn't melt out.

Could that be practical and/or useful?

Essentially this is what PIOMAS does. Normally its used with calculations of past energy transfer to estimate current ice conditions, but it could be run into the future by using weather forecasts rather than reanalysis.

[BornFromTheVoid]

NSIDC daily extent and the 5 day mean are both lowest on record now.

[plinius]

Interesting question just popped into my head: has anyone ever modelled the total heat required to melt all the Arctic sea ice on any specific day?

Or, more work but more useful, a map over the Arctic of the total heat per square metre to melt the ice?

It would be similar to an average ice thickness map but there would be variations due to ice temperature and it could account for partial melting and different ice concentration fractions.

Then that could be compared with a predicted or average heat delivery to the ice over the melt season at any position to predict which parts would or wouldn't melt out.

Could that be practical and/or useful?

Apart from the true comment about ice models -
This would not be very different from a normal ice thickness chart. Concerning heat of the ice - the specific heat capacity of ice near those temperatures is about 2.1 J/(gK), whereas the melting enthalpy is 333J/g, i.e. 150 times the amount. This means 10K below freezing (which is already quite a high value for an ice patch) changes your melting heat budget by less than 7%. similar for the concentration - in most cases it is above 90%. This plays a role for the albedo and heating, but not really for the warmth you need to melt it.

[Jim Hunt]

The latest issue of Arctic Sea Ice News is out:

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2015/03/possibly-low-in-the-north-definitely-high-in-the-south/

Arctic sea ice extent continues to track well below average, but it is still unclear whether March will see an increase in ice, or establish a record low maximum. Regionally, Arctic ice extent is especially low in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Sea. In the Antarctic, sea ice shrank to the fourth highest minimum in the satellite record.

I felt compelled to quibble slightly with the NSIDC over that final assertion:

https://twitter.com/GreatWhiteCon/status/573259291580370945

[LRC1962]

@ Jim H: I can see how NSIDC maybe skittish about Mar, because I believe it was last year where it looked like an early Mar max then a cool snap came in and it ended with one of the latest max on record.
Part 2 (not likely but possible) with all that very bad winter, snow and cold, in the American north east, declaring an early ASI max at this time maybe a little politically and media wise a very unwise thing to do. Why not soft peddle what you know is the truth and wait until middle to late Mar. to declare mid Feb. as your max.
Granted not what scientist or us would like to see coming out of them, and not that I am excussing them, but if that is their reasoning I can understand it.

[jdallen]

Hard to imagine a cold snap when most of the next week in the arctic look like this weather wise.

[viddaloo]

Icelook mar5: Average extent 4^th lowest in 8 weeks, average volume will be 6^th in 10 weeks, and p1k (Piomas minus 1000) will be 3^rd in 10 months. With daily melt (extent losses) going on for 6 of the past 7 days, many say the melt season already started and that Feb 15th was the sea ice extent maximum. However, the well–known Arctic deceitfulness demands that we wait at least 25 days from the possible max level, to see if it's nevertheless only a temporary max level. In any case, these huge losses in daily extent at this early stage lead to annual average extent drops, and during the weekend we crossed the 10.32 line for the first time this year, only 2 days later than predicted. Since then the melt has increased drastically, and with the current weekly AAE drop pace of 5040 km²/week, we should in fact be able to lose 20 grand per month. That will take us past the 10.3 million line before the end of March. On a shorter term, the weekly pace will have us below 10.31 million by Mar 13, or according to the prognosis graph on Wednesday March 11th. The forecast is of course most reliable in the short term, but has us crossing into 4th lowest territory on May 2nd. It takes months for the annual average to get down to the lowest position even if we're there already for daily extent, but as long as we're lowest — and thus also lower than last year — the AAE graph will keep going down, and with a steeper drop the further below daily extent gets. Volume — as usual — is harder to predict, especially right before the PIOMAS February release, and some people even claim we are 3000 km³ below last year on a daily volume basis. For March 4th this would mean 18086 km³, and for the p1k graph (Piomas minus 1000) it would mean it was drawn way too high on the chart and should be heading down rapidly towards the 2nd lowest and all–time lowest position. For the coming days, all eyes will be on PIOMAS, and the question on some people's minds is what PIOMAS will make of the record early extent maximum and the rapidly dropping and record low sea ice extent. In any case, both area, extent and volume will of course be zero on the same day, and PIOMAS being an up to 40 days delayed ice statistic and a theoretical model output on top of that, with obvious issues and an increasing number of questions being raised about it, suggests that PIOMAS will be less relevant and daily extent and area measurements more interesting as we step down the ladder towards the first Big Zero.

[chart faq]

[Wipneus]

Winds, 50km/h, push the ice around north Greenland to the Fram.

[Jim Hunt]

@ Jim H: I can see how NSIDC maybe skittish about Mar, because I believe it was last year where it looked like an early Mar max then a cool snap came in and it ended with one of the latest max on record.

I was quibbling slightly about their Antarctic number, in an endeavour to point out that Wipneus is now generating Antarctic regional metrics to complement his Arctic ones.

Getting back to the Arctic, there have been some late extent surges in recent years, as Walt Meier (of NASA Goddard fame) has now pointed out on the blog.

Looking at area instead of extent, Wipneus' forecast reveals CT area finally reaching lowest for the date when they publish another update later today:

"Arctic Sea Ice Area Lowest Ever (For the Date!)"

[DavidR]

@ Jim H: I can see how NSIDC maybe skittish about Mar, because I believe it was last year where it looked like an early Mar max then a cool snap came in and it ended with one of the latest max on record.

I was quibbling slightly about their Antarctic number, in an endeavour to point out that Wipneus is now generating Antarctic regional metrics to complement his Arctic ones.

Getting back to the Arctic, there have been some late extent surges in recent years, as Walt Meier (of NASA Goddard fame) has now pointed out on the blog.

Looking at area instead of extent, Wipneus' forecast reveals CT area finally reaching lowest for the date when they publish another update later today:

"Arctic Sea Ice Area Lowest Ever (For the Date!)"

Lowest extent : Lowest Area not a pair of records to  be celebrated.

[LRC1962]

@JH: Gotcha. Antarctica is always a problem when extent is included. As the seasons are opposite it would make much more sense if instead of adding the same date of global average, add the same season day. Or maybe even another better category would be an albedo number. Since one of the most important feed back loops is lose of albedo, come up with an albedo number for each day. You could then include the impact of dark snow .
Then I go back to my gripe and that is sea ice has virtually nothing to with what is happening in the Antarctic. There it is what is happening to the ice shelves and ice sheets.

[Wipneus]

North East Greenland, March 7-9. Sea ice seems to be flying.

(after you click the picture of course)

[jdallen]

North East Greenland, March 7-9. Sea ice seems to be flying.

(after you click the picture of course)

Nice, and no surprise; those storms had wind ripping through the Fram at near 100KPH from the NW.

[BornFromTheVoid]

I reckon that we're reaching the end of this period of ice loss, and that we'll see a slight increase overall during the next week.

Barents sea has lost about 250k in areas since early February (100k in the last week) and is back close to record low territory, so losses from there will be a bit slower during the coming week as winds vary from north westerly to southerly, causing expansion and compression on different days, but staying mild enough to prevent new ice formation. Kara may also see some minor losses too. Between them, I'd estimate another 50k could be lost this week.

Over the Bering sea, I'd expect to see some moderate increases, perhaps up to 100k. The air looks like remaining below average, with occasional light to moderate northerly winds through the Bering strait, helping to spread the ice out a little. Okhotsk looks like remaining mild however, so I wouldn't expect any significant gains there.

For other regions, the Greenland sea looks like seeing a combination of milder conditions and increased export, which should balance things out there. The Baffin sea will experience mainly colder conditions and northerly winds, but it's already slightly above average, so I'd only expect a slight increase here, perhaps 30k.