Thirdly and much more importantly than either of the above: the IJIS graph is (I believe) still based on Windsat and not on the AMSR2 data shown in the Sea Ice Monitor.
I thought I needed to answer the last first(Most importantly).
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2012/08/20120825_arctic_sea_e.htmlThis JAXA press release clearly states that SHIZUKU(AMSR2) is the source for their data. Fair mistake, they never updated the credit on their graph page.
Firstly: I doubt they're factoring in the Aral basin.
They started displaying AMSR2 images last July 24. They also started having big revisions to their initial postings on the order of 60k to 100k. On the Monitor, the concentration map would show ice on the Aral, but on the ice extent overlay, they showed the Windsat extent(identifiable by its blind spot. They were manually removing the ARAL phantom ice from the extent number so I assume they were using AMSR2 to generat the number. It is interesting that on the above, they erased the phantom ice from their concentration graphic, something they they never bothered to do on the monitor. They stopped doing these manual revisions in late August(I think they tapered them off to avoid a jump), when the validation period ended, and they started using AMSR2 generated overlays on Aug 22, 2012.
Secondly: Vergent, you're a day out with your logic. The -197k is the change between the 17th and 18th - and if you overlay those you can see nothing much going on in the Aral.
My bad. In more ways than the one you pointed out. It is also wrong to compare one day to the previous. It takes two days to make a 95% complete scan, so doing so is to compare a lot of data to itself. I also linked to an incomplete image, the final image for the 19th, the phantom Aral ice reappeared.
Better if I had used an example that was already final. On 6/18 2013, there was a phantom melt in the Aral, and a corresponding rise in the daily loss from 90k to 130k. on the 19th the phantom ice reappeared, and the daily loss dropped to 37k.
JAXA also reads fog banks as ice on occasion.
We are coming up on the anniversary of the AMSR2 start up. From 7/24 thru 8/22 it will be invalid to compare 2013 to 2012 without subtracting 60k from 2013 corresponding to the Aral phantom ice.
Vergent