In recent years, October has seen some rapid recoveries of Arctic ice extents. But this year may become something special. With the early onset of Siberian snow cover and the resulting surface cooling, ice is roaring back, especially on the Asian side. Consider the refreezing during the last 11 days through yesterday.

The graph compares extents over the last 10 days.

2017 has reached 5.7M km2, 460k km2 more than the strong 2016 recovery, now tracking the 10 year average. 2007 remains 1.1M km2 behind, and 2012 is 1.7M km2 less than 2017. SII is showing similar ice gains in October.

Halloween is Coming!

Footnote

Some people unhappy with the higher amounts of ice extent shown by MASIE continue to claim that Sea Ice Index is the only dataset that can be used. This is false in fact and in logic. Why should anyone accept that the highest quality picture of ice day to day has no shelf life, that one year’s charts can not be compared with another year? Researchers do this analysis, including Walt Meier in charge of Sea Ice Index. That said, I understand his interest in directing people to use his product rather than one he does not control. As I have said before:

MASIE is rigorous, reliable, serves as calibration for satellite products, and uses modern technologies to continue the long and honorable tradition of naval ice charting. More on this at my post Support MASIE Arctic Ice Dataset