On Monday, 12 March 2018 16:16:27 UTC, wrote:
On Thursday, 8 March 2018 09:33:10 UTC, wrote:
Will this be a year of a new record ice extent low in September? Trouble is; you can't tell from conditions in March, even when a record March low is achieved. You just almost certainly know that there will be record lows in September, in some (many) years until no summer ice exists.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Has 2018 peak Arctic ice been reached? To early to call, I think.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

However, current levels are tracking well below any previous record for this date.

I beg to differ - I thought this season had tracked last season very closely, and in fact till the New Year were much higher. As far as I can see the figure for the 13 March of 14.453 million square kilometres takes this season above the lowest maximum of 14.447 last season.

The NSIDC have changed how they do their statistics in recent years, and now use a moving average of the extent over a number of days, rather than the highest value for a single day, so I don't know what they'll finally decide, all I know is that it's not the lowest by at least 6,000 square kilometres!

There is also the possibility that this surge could go on for a little longer, although we have now passed the average date of the maximum in the Arctic.