With 2016 still being the record holder for extent, area and volume, and land snow cover also again dropping to record low values, there is a real concern that we may be facing a drastic melting season and possibly a new record low come this September.
Some persistent lows will disperse the ice which keep the "extent" up at this time, despite a very warm Arctic boundary with lots of melting going on all around the Arctic, so the real deal this year may be played once the melting edge reaches further into the CAB, later into the melting season.
And the question is, what kind of ice is there in the CAB this year ?
In Neven's latest PIOMAS ASIB post here :
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2016/06/piomas-june-2016.htmlshows this PIOMAS picture of ice thickness anomaly :
The first thing to note is the horrible situation in the Beaufort.
That is the area where MYI and FYI alike have been melting out due to (warming of) the open waters that appeared there at the end of April.
Also notable is where the thickest ice is situated :
- The ESS coast, which is melting out very fast right now due to that heat wave (in turn caused by snow-free lands and clear skies over the past few weeks), and
- A swat right north of the CAA, an area that has never melted out, and won't this year either.
- A small chunk of thick ice in the Chukchi, which is indeed hanging in there up till now (despite attacks from both ocean and atmospheric heat).
After these anomalies are done (give it a week or two), there is not much more to hold back ice melt deep into the CAB :
Note that there are large swats of ice in the CAB, from the Beaufort to the NP, that are 10 - 30 cm thinner than normal. That matches the physics of SQRT(FDD) for the impact of the warm winter (7 - 10 C higher than normal), which adds credibility to the PIOMAS model.
It also raises concerns : Once the thick areas at the boundary melted out, the interior of the CAB is weaker than normal, and thus fair game for unavoidable heat input later in the melting season.