I could n't see a more recent thread, although I am sure NH snow cover crops up regularly in other threads so I've resurrected this one.
Kind of surprising there is n't more about this topic. As the NSIDC put it "in terms of area, snow cover is the largest single component of the cryosphere, covering an average of about 46 million square kilometers (about 17.8 million square miles) of Earth's surface each year ."
Interesting to look back on some of the posts from the start of this thread or indeed prior to that in this blog five years ago from
Neven.
In recent years the lack of snow cover was especially evident in the crucial late spring/early summer period.
"At the height of this summer's melt, 2012 was 8.5 million sq kilometres ahead of the 1972-1979 average. This is a full month advance in the melt over a 27 year period."
So here is an update from Rutgers University. 2017 is turning out to be a snowy year. I've put it alongside 2016 for comparison. 2016 was much like the years prior showing serious decline in snow cover. 2017 has seen quite a turnaround. Most months so far with positive anomalies and the negative ones were only slight.
The question is, are we seeing a shift in the climate of the Arctic, a change from a once desert climate to a more snowy one. Will the warming world lead to more snow in the Arctic ? Or is this recent change only a blip ?