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Schneefan at wobleibtdieerderwaermung.de here analyzes Arctic sea ice to date…

(Translated, edited by P Gosselin)

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Arctic: Sea ice melt 2016 done at 4.1 million km²? Northwest Passage freezes over!

At approx. 4.1 million square kilometres extent, it appears that the summertime Arctic sea ice melt has ended early, on 7 September 2016.

Here the sea ice area is 743,000 km² greater than the low set on 16 September 2012.



On average sea ice begins to grow again in mid September.

The NSIDC table shows the preliminary low point on 7 September 2016, at 4.083 million km²,. On September 8 the ice area grew by 21,000 sq. km. to 4.104 million km²:

Table for Arctic sea ice extent with 15% ice concentration from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) from September 9, 2016. Source: NH_seaice_extent_nrt_v2.csv.

Also NORSEX shows Arctic sea ice (min. 15% concentration) possibly having turned the corner from the September 7 low point:

Source: arctic-roos.org/observations/in-arctic.

Whether there will be more melting, depends on the wind conditions over the next few days.

But one thing is clear: The northern part of the Northwest Passage was blocked by multi-year ice – foremost the western exit – for the entire summer of 2016, and was even not passable by ice breakers.

The southern part – Amundsen’s Route – was neither ice free in August 2016…

NSIDC sea ice chart (extent) for August 2016 shows sea ice blockage of the western part of northern route through the Northwest Passage. The southern Amundsen’s Route shows partial ice blockage and thus could be traversed only with the help of ice breakers. Source: nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

….nor after the start of September 2016:

NSIDC sea ice chart, September 8, shows a strong ice blocking of the northern route of the Northwest Passage, western exit. The southern Amundsen Route shows closed ice fields. Source: nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/.

When comparing both NSIDC charts, we see a growth in sea ice in early September 2016 along the southern Amundsen Route compared to August 2016.

250 billion tonnes more ice

The Arctic polar winter 2016 has started early this year, as it did a year ago. Greenland ice from to 1 September 2015 to 31 August 2016 grew by 30 billion cubic meters (30 km³). Since the 2011/2012 season it has grown by 250 billion tonnes (250 km³) in mass. [That’s the same as 250,000 sq. km of 1 meter thick sea ice.]

Top: The total daily contribution to the surface mass balance from the entire ice sheet (blue line, Gt/day). Bottom: The accumulated surface mass balance from September 1st to now (blue line, Gt) and the season 2011-12 (red) which had very high summer melt in Greenland. For comparison, the mean curve from the period 1990-2013 is shown (dark grey). The same calendar day in each of the 24 years (in the period 1990-2013) will have its own value. These differences from year to year are illustrated by the light grey band. For each calendar day, however, the lowest and highest values of the 24 years have been left out.” Source: dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland“.

Astonishingly there are some people who wish to navigate the Arctic in sailing vessels because some climate prophets, like Al Gore and Peter Wadhams, claimed that Arctic sea ice would be practically gone in the polar summer of 2016. Read more here on climate scientists who called such claims pure nonsense.

Many people of course can appreciate the sailing skills of the Northabout crew, but no one should risk their lives to prop up the climate fairy tale of man-made global warming with an ice-free summertime Arctic: A Race Against Time.

The next coming days will tell us whether or not Arctic sea ice has reached the minimum for the summer earlier than normal, or if it will shrink some more.

Greetings

Schneefan2015