Singularity

Thank you for the welcomes, looks like interesting times ahead. This forum makes for an excellent place to share our thoughts

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ Greetings to all. I tend to approach weather and climate from the scientific side and have been keeping an eye on the Arctic this year whenever I've had respite from working. I find the summaries at the link above to be among the most effective available online. One thing I've noticed is that ice extent can be misleading at times, for example where the analysis at the link above states "passive microwave imagery from AMSR-2 reveals that the ice pack has become very diffuse within the Beaufort Sea, with ice concentrations dropping below 50%", I can see how that might be registered under extent. Yet even the other major measure - volume - can be distorted by a concentration of particularly thick, multi-year ice. Having said that, I do think the better volume this year has been a consequence of a somewhat favourable 2014 setup following a very favourable 2013 setup for ice retention. Going back to the Beaufort Sea ice, this may be a source of notable extent drops in the near future based on this next quote: "The presence of open water surrounding the floes allows for enhanced lateral and basal ice melt, raising the possibility that much of the multiyear ice in this region will melt out during the remainder of the summer" As usual, time will reveal the true path. I agree with the notion that it may end up near 2007 but short of 2012... unless September does very strange things.