I've not published one of these sea-ice diaries for awhile, and I've been busy with work-related projects unrelated to the global warming problem. In checking past diaries, I see that JohnnyRook wrote a diary last week with a link to his Climaticide Chronicles blog, which contained some information about a dramatic slowdown in the formation of Arctic sea ice during the latter part of November and early this month.
For graphics and more, see below.
This image from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder CO gives the mean sea ice coverage in the Northern Hemisphere from 1979-2000 (bold grey), last year's record low sea ice coverage and subsequent recovery (dashed green/aqua), and this year's sea ice coverage since 1 September 2008 (solid light blue line) to New Years' Day 2009.
During most of December, the refreezing of the Northern Hemisphere oceans came to a virtual halt for over 2 weeks, and only now has begun an increase at the climatologically normal rate, at an area coverage about equal to the 2007-08 refreeze. Note that nothing like this halt occurred the previous record low ice cover year. Ice coverage since mid-to-late December shows sea ice extent has pretty much been the same as 2007-08, with a slow increase.
Temperatures have been mostly well above normal in the Arctic since early fall. JohnnyRook covered the boreal autumn (Sept.-Nov.) period in his diary, in discussing the NSIDC article of 3 December 2008. December hasn't been much better, even with the cold and snow over much of the U.S., and the unusually cold weather for part of December in AK. The European Arctic has been extraordinarily warm, as can be seen at a number of data points here for Murmansk, Russia; here for Arkangelsk, Russia, here for Tromso, Norway and finally here for Bjornova, Norway (which is an island well-north of Tromso, out in the middle of the remnants of the Gulf Stream that get that far north and east).
The Arctic coast of AK has been relatively warm as well, with Barrow AK having an +11.1 anomaly from normal for the month of December 2008. Interestingly, the interior of AK has been having very cold (though not record-breaking) weather since 26 December. I don't have the large scale Arctic temperature or wind flow anomalies, which would tell us a fuller picture, but it appears that the effects cited by the NSIDC earlier in the refreeze season were still active in December along the Arctic coast.
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I've been holding on to this diary for awhile, so I'm going to post it. I'll have more later this month as the full December 2008 figures come in.
May 2009 bring better things for us all, and may Pres. Obama have the wind at his back.