Arctic Sea Ice Update - 8/31 - Melting Accelerates W/I 150+- Miles Of Pole

[hatrack]

Starting at the top - looking down at the Pole, we're looking at thousands of square miles reduced to between 4/10ths and 8/10ths coverage:



Between the Pole and Siberia (roughly speaking) - 7-8/10ths coverage continuing to expand:



LOTS of breakup north of Franz Josef Land:



Heading south from the top of Greenland on the west side, the Kane Basin is about half-covered with half coverage at and beyond 80N, and Baffin Bay's pretty much clear:



To the south, Davis Strait is 100% ice-free from top to bottom:



On the opposite side of the Big Island, Greenland Central mostly clear (that's northern Iceland at the bottom of the frame):



And to the south, coastal Greenland here is pretty much all done for the season - less than 1/10th coverage:

[phantom power]

1. I, for one, can't wait...

to find out what an ice-free north pole will do to our weather in the northern hemisphere.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. It'll be great.

My Qaanaaq Baskin-Robbins franchise is going to be a real hit...

[Delphinus]

3. What I can't understand is

why this isn't front page news on every paper on the world? Why isn't this being discussed in Congress?

Why is everyone asleep at the wheel?

Who's steering this god-forsaken ship?

[Boomer]

4. Uh, don't look at me...

I thought YOU were driving.

[mccoyn]

7. Hopefully they are just waiting until the turn around.

Get the worst possible numbers for the season and run with those. Its not like the sea ice suddenly disappeared to cue the media. Its been a long seasonal process.

[brokensymmetry]

9. Because doing something about it would require sacrifice.

And everyone knows that won't happen.

The planet is cooked and so are we.

I cannot say I feel sorry for people; I do
feel sorry for the animals. They'll go extinct
in masses, and it will be a result of mankind,s
misbehavior.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. The ice should start re-forming in a week or two

I think the maximum melt is around September 5th. I could be off by a few days, though.

On the other hand, this has been an unusually warm summer, so who knows?

One year is nothin'. If this keeps getting worse, we will start seeing more than just a lot of open water in the summertime in the Great Previously-White North. I guess we'll need to look through the Inuit and Chukchi languages for words when the first arctic hurricanes start to form.

--p!

[htuttle]

6. What's the Inuit word for "Oh, fuck!"?

[phantom power]

10. They have 42: one for stepping in each type of snow in bare feet.

[Dead_Parrot]

11. Oh, quajuq!

(I think)

[Dogmudgeon]

12. O fuq -- deleted!

On Edit: I am an idiot.

I didn't notice the previous post. Damn my inobservant hide.

!q--
Where's that Inuit font when you need it?

[hatrack]

8. Annual lows are (or should I say "were") around 9/10

We'll see if that holds this year.

And we are on track for the lowest extent on record - even considering that three out of the past four years set new low-end records.