Introducing the WUWT US Weather History Reference Page

Dear Just The Facts,
You know, apparently, Jason Box’s group got similar results for Greenland using different methodology.
I don’t even much care what either group did.
Since I have no access to quantitative data, I have been tracking Greenland’s melt qualitatively by looking at composite satellite images available on a Danish site. I also look at the MODIS images. I store the composite images on my HD. They are fairly low resolution compared to anything available to a actual researcher.
Even so, the melt during 2010 was visually very dramatic. If I can see rapid changes occurring by looking at low-resolution images, then to me that has significance because I shouldn’t even be able to discern rapid changes from such images unless they are large.
Further, we know that temperatures on southwestern Greenland remained above freezing even through December, unlike prior years when freezing would take affect by September. The images that I look at also allow one to see the effects of runoff in the sea due to the reflectivity of the sediment particles that flow out with the glacial runoff, and runoff could be seen through December. Only lately has there been ice in the sea off the southwest coast sufficient to get in the way of observing the sediment particle reflections.
The same site also used to have graphics of water temperatures around the coast of Greenland, and when certain events occurred like major draining of most all melt lakes along the edge of the ice sheet in August (these are very interesting since they are neon blue against white in the MODIS images, and when they drain out, they leave depressions behind that are greyish where their shadows occur). The number and size of the melt lakes were much larger in 2010 that in any prior year. Further, the retreat of the edge of the ice sheet along the south west was not built back by any accumulation of snowfall this past winter due to temperatures being above freezing. This actually resulted in a lowering of the horizon to the east of Nuuk, causing the sun to appear two days earlier than normal in January.
The other thing that occurred all around the entire coast of Greenland was that none of the fjords really froze over like they had in past years. Not to mention the ice arches did not form at the north end of the Nares Strait so sea ice from the Arctic continued to flow out through December. And the ice that flows out there is in general what is left of the multi-year ice.
Again, this is all qualitative info, but it is easy enough to see what occurs when the ice arches form (as they had done for years) and when they stop forming.
Now, we have a situation where we know that the Arctic Sea temperature has increased, the temperature of the air above the Arctic has increased, the winds have increased in speed, there are more storms, and the ice is much much thinner, leading to its greater susceptibility to being shoved around and broken up and moved out of the Arctic Sea.
Anyway, this is the link to the Danish site: http://www.seaice.dk/latest-ice.html
Once there, you have to click on the link to “Overview pictures of northern and southern hemisphere.”
The images are updated daily so if you want to see them again, you have to download them as their links will not work the next day.
I used to look at a Canadian site to track the sea ice north of the Canadian archipelago, but the images are too fuzzy now due to more storms. They are best when there are no clouds. This is not the case for the Danish images which use some type of system that eliminates cloud cover.