Apologies for this late update, but at least it will give me the opportunity to give my opinion/analysis of how this melting season has evolved, now that the minimum is just around the corner.

It also gives me the opportunity to announce that the Arctic Sea Ice Forum recently passed the 100 million pageview mark. This year already has the most pageviews since the ASIF's inception in 2013, and this month - only halfway through - already attracted more pageviews than any other month so far. My gratitude goes out to everyone who contributes with images, animations, analysis, speculation and heaps and heaps of information, all of them needed to help people become conscious of the severity of the situation human civilisation is in.

On to 1 billion pageviews!

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Another month has passed and so here is the updated Arctic sea ice volume graph as calculated by the Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS) at the Polar Science Center:

Despite a massive amount of melting momentum and an advantageous thickness distribution, volume loss during August 2019 was below average (2301 vs 2559 km3 for the 2007-2018 period). Of course, being record low makes it harder to melt a lot of ice, but since 2007, only two years - 2013 and 2017 - managed to lose less volume than 2019 during August. This means that this year is no longer lowest on record, with 2012 breezing past and going 238 km3 lower. 2016, though profiting from the most extreme August weather conditions in the era of the New Abnormal, is still 521 km3 behind.

Here's how the differences with previous years have evolved from last month:

Wipneus' version of the PIOMAS graph shows that this year is the only one capable of staying somewhat close to 2012: