Thinking about the discussion of the current state of the ice, and it's potential to pass 2012, I indulged in a quick exercise using archived IJIS data. I briefly evaluated the loss from this date for the years 2004 through 2014, and came up with the minimum, maximum and average IJIS extent loss between May 7th and the years final minumum. I came up with this:
IJIS Extent Loss from 5/7 to Minimum, 2004-2014
Max Loss 9391972
Min Loss 7024081
Average Loss 7943161
Median Loss 8002714
I submit these values give us the effect of weather combined with "momentum" - the effect of heat previously applied (or not) during the prior 6 months or so. From that, I think we can extrapolate some end points which probably define the range within which the 2015 minimum will fall:
Potential 2012 Minimum based on the above numbers
2015 Minus Average Loss 4446987
2015 Minus Minimum Loss 5366067
2015 Minus Maximum Loss 2998176
2015 Minus Median Loss 4387434
I've added in median, as its offset from Average tends to reflect our trend, and what is more typical from 2007 onwards.
The upshot of this is, with a loss similar to 2012, we beat it by about 200,000KM2
With the same loss as 2004 (minimum loss), we still end up 8th lowest SIE overall, ahead of 2004 and 2006
With the average loss (Less than 2013, slightly more than 2014), we pass all years except 2007, 2011 and 2012 to take over 4th place, ditto median.
So I'd say, the most probable outcome is we end up somewhere around 2011 at the end of the melt season. However, there is a caveat: All the loss numbers are inside the 2SD threshold, and all but one is within 1SD of the average. The situation is still very volatile, but I think highlights just how vulnerable things are.
Based on that, it implies to me that there is a better than 40% chance we will pass 2012 this year.