chubbs

Here is Hadcrut 70-90N with a requirement that 25% of the grids have valid data.

NSIDC have a nice discussion on Antarctica in the Nov monthly summary. Winds and temperatures both contributed to the unusual ice losses. http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

I posted some rough numbers on another blog. S Hemi sea ice has been running 2500000 sq km lower than last year. That is roughly 0.7% of earth's surface. Sea ice albedo impact vs open water is roughly 0.2 after accounting for clouds. Insolation at 70S is 50% above the global average on the Dec solstice. So currently there is roughly 0.2% more solar being absorbed at the earth's surface due to the change in SHemi sea ice vs. last year. Of course the impact decreases off the solstice and disappears completely once the sun sets. Integrating over a season the impact is about the same magnitude as going from peak to bottom of a solar cycle.

S Hemi ice is highly variable and gets a reset every year since most of the ice melts so we will need to see several years to confirm any change in the sea ice trend. Biggest concern is surface melt on ice shelves that are already under pressure from bottom melting. One unusually warm year could speed things up.

November volume at record low with roughly 25% less sea ice than last November.

Yup, I am more optimistic about our winter than 75-90N. Here is Nov 2009.

This chart illustrates how 2016 compares to the range of extent in previous years. The extreme outer edge represents the coldest years from the early portion of the satellite record. Note that 2016 is not the least expansive year in all areas.

Currently Antarctic sea ice is even more unusual.

Looks like 2016 volume caught-up to 2012 by late October. Record low volume likely in Nov.

The climate feedback maybe smaller this time of year but the mid-latitude impact is greatest through warming of the Arctic leading to a weaker jet stream. Could be another good I95 snow year.

As long as the Arctic Ocean completely freezes in winter, record melt extent will always produce record re-freeze. With all the open water in the Arctic Ocean this year, we will get a record late Fall/early Winter re-freeze at some point.

Global sea ice extent has moved far outside the historical envelop in the past 3 weeks. Unlikely to get much better in the next week or so with PV splits at both poles.

NSIDC extent for Oct 29 from Mohyu blog. (1000 of square km) Arctic Antarctic Total 2015 8444 17748 26192 2016 7111 16620 23731 2016 has 2461 x 1000 sq km or 9.4% less sea ice than this date last year. This is roughly 0.5% of the earth's surface.

This just out (behind a paywall) . Timely for this fall's unusual arctic circulation. Note positive feedback between sea ice loss and circulation changes leading to increased heat transport to arctic. On the atmospheric response experiment to a Blue Arctic Ocean Tetsu Nakamura1,2,*, Koji Yamazaki1,2, Meiji Honda3, Jinro Ukita3, Ralf Jaiser4, Dörthe Handorf4 and Klaus Dethloff4 Abstract We demonstrated atmospheric responses to a reduction in Arctic sea ice via simulations in which Arctic sea ice decreased stepwise from the present-day range to an ice-free range. In all cases, the tropospheric response exhibited a negative Arctic Oscillation (AO)-like pattern. An intensification of the climatological planetary-scale wave due to the present-day sea ice reduction on the Atlantic side of the Arctic Ocean induced stratospheric polar vortex weakening and the subsequent negative AO. Conversely, strong Arctic warming due to ice-free conditions across the entire Arctic Ocean induced a weakening of the tropospheric westerlies corresponding to a negative AO without troposphere-stratosphere coupling, for which the planetary-scale wave response to a surface heat source extending to the Pacific side of the Arctic Ocean was responsible. Because the resultant negative AO-like response was accompanied by secondary circulation in the meridional plane, atmospheric heat transport into the Arctic increased, accelerating the Arctic amplification. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL070526/abstract

Per Jaxa, looks like antarctic extent is also at a record low. First time ever for both poles at same time?

Saw this Wipneus plot of PIOMASS minimum volume at the ASIF. This year ended up close to 2010 and 2011 and not far below the linear trendline. If we follow the linear trend, 2012 will be a normal year by 2022.

The figure below from a recent paper below shows how glacier discharge (D) has increased and surface mass balance has decreased since 1990 causing an increasingly negative Greenland mass balance (MB). Comparing the SMB estimates in the chart below to the chart posted above, the long term trends are similar but there are some differences in the relative ranking of individual years. http://www.the-cryosphere.net/10/1933/2016/

Here is a summary of the modeled surface mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet for the 2015/16 melting season. Strong melting was partially compensated for by above average snowfall. http://climato.be/cms/index.php?climato=the-2016-melt-season-over-greenland-as-simulated-by-marv3-5-2

Northern oceans have continued to warm while el-nino fades cooling the tropics. See also: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/clim/sst.anom.anim.year.html

It is surprising how close CT SIA came to 2012. The series of storms in August may also have played a role by enhancing bottom melt.

NSIDC extent dropped 120k on 9/6 to 4083k clinching 2nd place.

Yes, good job flagging 4mil as a reasonable prospect at the start of the year

Would expect above average extent losses to close out the melt season due to the large areas of low concentration ice, good melting momentum, and relatively mild weather to start September particularly over the Laptev.

Here is 70-80N on the Pacific side covering most of the rest of the Arctic Ocean. There are some year-to-year differences, particularly this year, but the overall trend is similar.

Cool season 80-90N has warmed by roughly 4C in the past 20 years, so unless things slow down, 2C is not that far away.