Arctic sea ice report - 09/08/2015

Perhaps two weeks left to the summer minimum and we are all staring down the barrel of the Arctic methane time bomb.

Here is some of the data with my own reflections

The disappearing Arctic ice

This is the representation from the the National Snow and Ice Image which shows ice extent as being greater than the previous of 2012

NSDIC Arctic Sea-Ice Extent for September 7th, 2015 does not show the immense fall off that the Arctic-Roos Site did yesterday, and yet still shows that this summer’s extent is on a par with both 2007 and 2011, roughly tied for second-place in lowest summer extent. Yesterday was the Labor Day holiday in the US which explains why NSDIC did not release a report.

This appears to contradict data from Arctic-roos.org, shows 

Arctic sea of ice extent up to September 6, 2015.

There was some talk that this might have been 'false data'

But was it?

This following representation is from National Snow and Ice and suggests a solid area of ice that is greater than that of the previous minimum of 2012

As we know ice extent is only one of the relevant measurements - ice thickness and mass is also highly important.

Look at these representations which show the disappearance in 2015 of thick ice which in the area of the North Pole is about 2.5 meters instead of 4.5 meters. Almost all the thick ice on the north coast of Greenland has disappeared.

To my yes this shows a situation much worse than that of 2012 although the map of ice extent may misleadingly show otherwise.

Just have a look at this representation of Arctic sea ice temperature anomalies - up to 2 degress C higher than normal!

Look at this. The pin areas represent areas of 15 % ice concentration or less. Not exactly a solid ice pack!

Something tells me that we are not being told the full picture and have to work it out for ourselves.

https://earthdata.nasa.gov/labs/worldview/?p=geographic

Have alook at air movements in the North Atlantic and Pacific and in the Arctic itself and tell me there's no potential for further breakup of the ice

Here are ocean currents

And e're not even talking about methane emissions in the Arctic.

For what it's worth here is currently available data for methane emisssions at Barrow, Alaska. They still don't show current data, for this year or this month

How are we going to know if methane emissions have gone through the roof or not?

Can someone tell me?

The population of the world has had 156 years to learn this. 1250 ppb has been established as the energy balance for methane. Over that and the earth takes on more heat than it gives off. The pink is 2000 ppb and above. This image from today has a high of 2362 ppb. There should be no red on this image. (Harold Hensell)

Finally here is the Pacific