Sea Ice area

[OnlinePoker]

In the past few years, from this point on, the Arctic loses approximately 1 million more sq kilometers before the thawing season ends. If the same holds true this year, the final total should come in at around 3.5 million sq km. This is better than I expected at the beginning of the year and the "best" year-end total since 2009.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

Something interesting is the arctic temperatures above 80 North have been below average since April and have dropped below freezing a couple of weeks early.

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php

[Yo_Mama]

1. Yeah, the Arctic isn't in as dire a condition as commonly thought

The graph on the NSIDC page is easier to understand:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

The conditions in the Arctic do vary a lot based on weather, and one of the reasons for the odd recovery period this year is probably just weather:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/08/09/arctic-sea-ice-loss-dramatically-slows-record-unlikely-in-2013/

The alarm this year seems to have been due to a misunderstanding about the polar cam, which of course drifts and so was very far away from the pole when the alarming images were recorded.

[greenman3610]

2. Polar "lake" video notwithstanding, the arctic ice is collapsing

well ahead of worst case projections from just a few years ago.

it would be highly improbable to set new low records year after year - but the
total volume of ice continues to decline precipitously, no matter what the surface
area number turns out to be this year.

[OnlinePoker]

3. Not well ahead of worst case projections.

In 2007, the prediction was ice-free in 2013.

"Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007," the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC.

"So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7139797.stm