JAXA Extent 11,162,193 km2(May 24, 2018)
Just to add to Juan's post :
- Extent loss for the melting season to date is, at 2.73 million km2, almost exactly the average for the last 10 years.
- 2017 was a slow year at this time, hence 2018 extent is 439k (3.9%) below 2017,
- 2012 extent was 684k km2 more than 2018 on this date and yet still ended up with a record low by a bit more than 800,000 km2. We are approaching the time when 2012 extent loss started to accelerate.
- 2007 has a similar story - extent 622k more than 2018 on this date but melt accelerated late in the season.
- on average 28% of the melting is done for this season - still a long way to go,
I have added a line on the first table to show the effect of removing 2012 from the 10 year average extent loss. The outcome for the minimum then comes in at 4.11 million km2 as opposed to 3.95 million km2. The range of outcomes from the last 10 years remaining melt is 2.5 to 4.4 million km2.
Some non-data, non-scientific comments:-
- The melt this year for some time has seen very little variation from plodding along at 2nd place, hence this post shows little variation from the previous post,
- The Arctic in 2018 is a bit warmer so far than 2017,
- Global Ocean Heat Content has increased strongly in the last 12 months, some will head north.
- ENSO neutral conditions apply in 2018 as opposed to weakish La Nina in 2017.
These indicate a stronger melt this year than last year - maybe. But pure speculation without data belongs not on this thread nor on the 2018 melting season thread.