I missed doing a Sea Ice News last week due to being a bit discombobulated with family health issues which have now thankfully been resolved, so I’ll pick up here with a new report.
The news this week is that Arctic sea ice formation has slowed:
As you can see above, after making a very fast recovery during most of October, it is now pacing the 2007 rate. This isn’t terribly unusual, as you can see a “choke point” beginning in early November where the rates of formation start to converge. Right now the JAXA daily data report is passing the 8 million square kilometer mark a value of:
10,31,2010,8038906
Earlier this week, there was some concern that there may be a sensor issue of some sort, particularly when comparing and I asked NSIDC’s Dr. Walt Meier about it, see:
NSIDC -vs- Cryosphere Today – a visual discrepancy
Compare this NSIDC Arctic Sea Ice extent chart…
…with this from Cryosphere Today:
It certainly appears that there is more ice in 2010 than 2007 on the Cryosphere Today page. Dr. Meier seems to think that the 2007 map from CT is missing some ice, as NSIDC’s comparison between the dates doesn’t appear off as much as the CT images. Walt’s point is:
There is more ice in the central Arctic this year, but less in the Beaufort Sea, Canadian Archipelago, and Baffin Bay. These areas roughly balance each other out.
Reader Lee Kington provides this blink comparator version of NSIDC’s images:
In other news, Antarctic ice continues to be significantly above normal:
Antarctic Graphs: 
For more maps and graphs, see the WUWT Sea Ice Page
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fishnski says:
November 6, 2010 at 4:28 pm
We will almost certainly see 2010 go below 2007 soon…its extent and area increase rapidly this month.
But the question is whether we can consistently stay above 2009 and later 2006 to avoid being the “lowest on record”….although Phil was right earlier in that statistically they’re all pretty much equal.
-Scott
Preliminary JAXA number for 11/06 shows a loss…nearly guaranteeing that the final 11/06 number will be the lowest extent on record.
-Scott
Blink back & forth from 11-5 to 11-6 & you can clearly see ice gain..WUWT?
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/cgi-bin/seaice-monitor.cgi?lang=e
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_daily.php?ui_year=2010&ui_day=310&ui_set=2
This is kinda indirectly related to Ice extent & it does disturb me somewhat so i have posted it.
On some other Blogs you can start new subjects which is what i would have done instead if able.
As you can see we had a great Start to Snow Extent but we are way in the Neg right now & on top of that I see Air temps over on the Red/Neg side as staying above ave for maybe 8 plus more days. In fact I see f-casts for temps as high as 20 degrees above normal…Temps up in the 50’s where they should be in the 30’s..& No Snow!
I’m sure it will come around & mama nature will even the score but I’m getting nervous…as you can see by my handle..I need SNOW!
http://moe.met.fsu.edu/snow/
8+ days is about right..I’m seeing things turning around slowly & by early next week we should be getting back to normal
I love having my own Thread!…..Update coming soon…
I will post the Northern hemi Snow extent on wed next week & you will see the
fruits of my F-cast….You DOUTED ME????!!..Love my thread…Stay tuned!
This graph lags by 3 days so you can see that we are almost back to norm now..I’m Done..Time to move over to Sea ice news 29.
http://moe.met.fsu.edu/snow/