The alarms are sounding about lack of ice extent in Bering Sea, studiously ignoring what else is happening in the Arctic.  For instance the above image shows the last 10 days on the European side, with Barents Sea on the right growing steadily to a new maximum. On the left, Gulf of St. Lawrence ice is retreating as usual while Baffin Bay holds steady.

The Barents recovery is interesting and bears watching.  See how 2018 compares with other years in the Graph below.

Note the recent 2018 dramatic rise above average.  Meanwhile on the Pacific side the seesaw between Bering and Okhotsk continues:

In the last ten days, Bering has gone up, then down, and back up to arrice at the same extent.  In the same period Okhotsk added 70k km2.

Ice extents for February and March appear in the graph below; 11 year average is 2007 to 2017 inclusive.

Note that ice growth slows down in February since the Arctic core is frozen and extent can only be added at the margins.  MASIE shows 2018 is now matching 2017, while SII is running about 200k km2 lower.  The 11 year average maxed on day 62 at 15.1M km2 while this year  max was on day 69, ~560k km2 lower at day 57.  It remains to be seen what max will end up in 2018

It is natural for alarmists to focus on Bering Sea, since that is the only place where a sizable deficit appears (for the moment).  The graph below show NH ice extent from day 1, without and without B and O (Bering and Okhotsk, the Pacific basins that whill melt out by September anyway.)

Here’s your Valentine’s Day Greeting:

And here’s your PC candy for Valentine’s Day.

via Science Matters

http://ift.tt/2GkDBZc

March 12, 2018 at 09:59AM