In June 2018, Arctic ice extent held up against previous years despite the Pacific basins of Bering and Okhotsk being ice-free.  The Arctic core is showing little change, perhaps due to increased thickness (volume) as reported by DMI.  The image above shows ice extents on day 179 for years 2007 through 2018.

The graph below shows how the Arctic extent has faired in June compared to the 11 year average and to some years of interest.
Note that 2018 started June well below the 11 year average and below other recent years.  As of day 179 (yesterday) ice extent is matching average and 2007, and slightly above 2017, with further losses to come in previous years.  SII 2018 is tracking the same as MASIE this month.

The table below shows ice extents by regions comparing 2018 with 11-year average (2007 to 2017 inclusive) and 2017.

2018 is 25k km2 below average, entirely due to Okhotsk plus Bering being ice-free.  Greenland Sea and Barents are down, offset by surpluses in Beaufort, Kara, Baffin and Hudson Bays.

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June 29, 2018 at 01:24PM

Much of America’s problems lie west of the San Andreas Fault.

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June 29, 2018 at 01:23PM

What costs $1,500m, makes no electricity, but “saves money”?

South Australia has used federal subsidies to build more wind power than it can use. They’ve spent half a billion already on diesel powered jet engines and a  battery that can power the state for “minutes”. For 139 hours last year the state produced so much wind power it supplied 100% of the states electricity needs and then some, and the problem of excess electricity is only getting worse as wind generation keeps increasing and solar PV uptake is rampant.

When government rules and regs have created an inefficient, expensive problem, what do we do? More of it. A new report suggests that South Australia needs a direct transmission line to NSW which will cost $1.5b. We could spend that on a reliable generator instead, or get the government out of the way and let the private sector do it for us, but instead we need to pay for another transmission line to connect up different zones-of-subsidy-rent seekers and hope we get $30 off the bill? It’s a savings in the statistic margin of error…

South Australia didn’t even have an interconnector til 1990. Now with decentralized power they need two?

[…]

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June 29, 2018 at 01:21PM

Nuclear-powered icebreakers called in to free the ports.

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The Barents Observer reports that two of Russia’s largest Arctic out-shipment points for oil and LNG are “packed with ice” leaving tankers and carriers stranded.

Experts had expected that ice clogging the Gulf of Ob would melt with the summer months, allowing the state-owned energy company Rosatomflots to avoid using their nuclear-powered icebreakers.

Two nuclear-powered icebreakers, the Taymyr and the Vaygach, are working overtime. There are also several smaller tugs and icebreakers working in the waters around the Sabetta port.

According to Rosatomflot, its icebreakers will be working at least through the first week of July to free stranded ships from the ice.

The fear about rapid melting of ice caps in the Arctic “seems to have receded a little and we are returning to the standards of the 1980s and 1990s,” said Rosatomflot representative Andrey Smirnov.

The Gulf of Ob a bay of the Arctic Ocean, located in Northern Russia at the mouth of the Ob River.

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/2018/06/midsummer-tankers-get-ice-trapped-near-russian-arctic-port

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-25/meanwhile-arctic-unanticipated-ice-pack-leaves-oil-and-lng-tankers-trapped

http://dailytimewaster.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-iceman-cometh-two-of-russias.html
Thanks to Klaus Kaiser, Les Francis and David Grissim for these links

“Lol look amount of ice beeakers lol,” says David

The post Russian tankers trapped in Ice appeared first on Ice Age Now.

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June 29, 2018 at 01:15PM