Thanks for starting an Arctic monitoring thread for the extraordinary period we're now in, Tim .
I've been reading around the ASI forum a lot in recent weeks. Some highlights from the past few days:
June was the 2nd warmest on record in the Arctic, behind 2005 and ahead of 2019 (yep, 2nd & 3rd set two years running). This despite weather patterns being not particularly unusual over the Arctic Ocean. Likely has a lot to do with the extreme Siberian heatwave, as some of that was within the Arctic Circle - including (only just!) the astonishing 38.0*C record on 16th June that's now been confirmed by the WMO.
NSDIC daily extents and losses since 27th. Long-term average is near -100 K per day, but these numbers are still relatively large:
Values in thousand square km.
2020-06-27 9,854
2020-06-28 9,723 -131
2020-06-29 9,575 -148
2020-06-30 9,445 -130
2020-07-01 9,262 -183
2020-07-02 9,142 -120
2020-07-03 8,942 -200
2020-07-04 8,807 -135
Meanwhile, area's been plummeting too, with 5-day trailing average losses of 199,000 sq. km yesterday and 212,000 sq. km today. Like with daily extent, the long-term average loss rate is around 100,000 per day.
Some Fram export is evident in buoy observations, while a large 'bite' of sea ice melt is advancing from the Laptev Sea into the Central Arctic Basin (CAB). A mixture of melt ponds and open waters.
Reportedly (according to 'Frivalousz21', who can be a bit melodramatic but tends to be so with good justification in my experience, there's been a large swathe of fog affecting the CAB lately, which has masked some melt ponds beneath. That implies that the area losses registering on satellite could have been even larger than they have (melt ponds are incorrectly registered as open water, but do indicate strong melting so are still bad news)!
Considering that this fog was preceded by a blast of air from the toasty lands of Siberia, it's possible that this fog has been at above-zero temps. If so, that will be melting sea ice unusually fast; water molecules transfer energy more efficiently than air molecules (water has a higher specific heat capacity).
The daily 'High Arctic' region albedo warming potential has hit a record high.
Topping last year and leaving 2012 in the dust (for this point in time).
The cumulative WP will be rising fast, having slumped a bit in June after storming out of the gates in May. Not seen an update on that in the past fortnight.
Overall, alarm bells are ringing. Mid-June to mid-July is the time of year when high pressure over the Arctic has the highest potential negative impact on the sea ice - and it looks like 2020 is realising a lot of that potential.
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T-Max: 30.4°C 21st Jul | T-Min: -6.8°C New Years Day! | Wettest Day: 34.1mm 2nd Oct | Ice Days: 2 (27th Jan & 8th Feb)
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