I've published a blog post on the ASIB about current events in the Arctic: Mad max?
Things to do with a MILLION.
All due respect, but the 'mad max' really isn't the issue here.
On Feb 15, the day of the possible 'mad max', we were 87 thousand lower than 2012. Today we're more than a million km2 lower. That is the main absurdity of the situation, and not a maximum that could conceivably be exceeded for a day or two, before the big melt continues.
As documented
elsewhere this morning, post–2007 the only time we've been close to a million head–start on the year with the lowest minimum at the time, it was early September and only days to go to the minimum.
Now it's early March and we have the entire 2015 melt season in which to spend and expand our million.
(True, 2012 had exceptional gains in this same Feb15 to Mar6 period, but 2015 is currently also a million short of the 2000s average. Therefore "it's not you, it's me", or IOW, it's 2015, and not the year you pick for comparisons.)
As someone already pointed out: Who needs meltponds when you have a million extra km2 of dark open seas? Plus it's not either–or: We can have the million AND abundant meltponds. We can have a million, abundant meltponds, extremely high temp anomalies in the Arctic AND furious cyclones. Plus Fram export of anomalously broken ice.
In short, you'd need something of a miracle to NOT go considerably lower than 2007 and 2012 in September this year.