NOTE: Poll closes at 12PM PST, Thursday, July 5th.
First, in case you missed it over the weekend, the WUWT Sea Ice page has gone through an upgrade. A number of new graphs and data sources were added that should be helpful in this sea ice poll. Details here.
For now a look at the JAXA sea ice extent. The plot is below:
Here’s a different version, including trend lines for the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s Averages, as well as for the three years with the lowest minimums since 1979, 2007, 2011 and 2008:
Note the 2012 plot isn’t far from the 2011 and 2007 plots at this point.Bering Sea Ice Area reached a record high this year, and that extra ice may well come into play later in the melt season.
The NSIDC extent data is used as the reference for the ARCUS sea ice outlook minimum determination, so I suggest you use it to base your best guesses:
Last month reader poll figured 4.9 million square kilometers. This month I think a lower value might be more representative. My personal forecast is now 4.7 million sq kilometers. Here’s the poll, pick one value for the summer 2012 minimum extent, expected in late September:
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4.5 million is the answer. Bank it.
“SEAT ICE”
Sounds like you’ll get piles.
[Fixed, thanks. ~dbs, mod.]
What is “Seat” ice? Something you get from tobogganing without a sled?
[Fixed, thanks. ~dbs, mod.]
WUWT is theologically predisposed to overestimate the coming ice extent, Bank that. 4.2 imho.
To date 2012 is level with 2007 but the year lines do dodge about a bit so we are down to best guess as usual.
You might want to edit the title to read “Sea Ice”. Other than that, thanks again for all the great articles!
[Fixed, thanks. ~dbs, mod.]
Seat ice? Could be painful or dangerous depending where it is. Or both. (Typo in headline)
Good to have these updated and at the ready. The press (Fairfax) seems to be mounting an second wave of “AGW could cause” stories now that the Carbon Tax has started.
Seat ice? I think your voice recognition needs a tweak.
I say 4.8 million, I think we’ll see the sea ice take a last minute spike closer to normal thanks to the cooler than normal waters over the bearing sea and record sea ice which should lead to a higher minimum, and slow the melting north of asia, but that’s just how i see things
“Seat Ice News” or Sea Ice News? Typo in headline.
[Fixed, thanks. ~dbs, mod.]
‘Seat’ ice news. Sorry. I know you’re having difficulty.
[Fixed, thanks. ~dbs, mod.]
My inschtinktuitive says to go a bit higher at 4.8 mil.sq.mi.
I am counting on the Bering Sea, and Hudson Bay later melts, as well as blind guessing, and optimism. We’ll see how that works out.
4.5 million, which corresponds by my gut to “low but not abysmally low”.
4.7 million sounds like a nice well-reasoned figure. But I’ve seen before when a large amount of the slush suddenly drops below the 15% cutoff in the last days and vanishes off the maps. Instead of guessing high and being disappointed, I’d rather go low and be pleasantly surprised.
The wind continues to favor melting. So, I dropped my estimate by .2.
The AO is neutral and forecasted to stay that way through at least half of the melt season (vortex is a bit weak compared to a positve AO, which results in some Jet Stream looping and Rossby Waves with cold events coming South here and there). It may turn positive towards the later half but not strongly (if it did so strongly we might keep more ice). Therefore winds will be kind of variable but not necessarily the kind that will blow your clothes off and move thick ice around in a tight pattern, with some of it on a fast conveyor belt out of Fram Strait, nor so weak that the ice rides freely on the outgoing Arctic current). Ice will melt in place along the edges and ride the normal currents out Fram Strait. My guess is that we will come close to the 3rd lowest (2008) but I don’t have a lot of confidence in that guess. If the AO were strongly one way or the other, we would have a more firm outlook.
While it is running close to the 2007 graph, it worries me that the 90% ice was more extensive in 2007. I will stay with my earlier estimate of 4.125mil but am not convinced it will not be even lower than that in the end
Ow, voice recognition. Of course. How mean of me.
Sorry about picking oin a minor typo in the title. We all have bad days.
I went 4.5 though as there has been a sharp downturn. Not that I’m convinced that betting on sea ice is any different to betting on the annual rainfall in Manchester, the sunshine on Leith or the shape of clouds.
I went with 4.8. But I have missed every year so don’t put any stock in my prediction. However, I did spend a bit more time this year looking at pressure systems and correlated wind and jet stream patterns this year.
I think the re-freezing is starting a little earlier in the more recent years from late to early September. I’ve seen the past two years heat truncate 2-3 weeks early the past two years in western Colorado. My WAG is for 5.0.
Sorry for the title Seat Ice. It was a speech recognition malfunction and the title is the one place the wordpress spellchecker does not work.
Sea ice looks like it’s doing good so far. Right in the middle of pack compared to recent years. No death spiral visible. Wonder how that ARCUS prediction of an ice free summer of 2013 is working out. LOL.
“title is the one place the wordpress spellchecker does not work.” Spell check would not pick up on “seat ice” anyway as both words are correctly spelt. (or spelled, if you prefer)
Seat ice can give rise to polaroids.
[Snip. Invalid email address. ~dbs, mod.]