Temperatures across the Arctic Ocean have turned very cold for this time of year, and melt has nearly stopped in the Arctic Basin
A storm in the Beaufort Sea is pushing thick ice towards the coasts, and causing extent to increase. Extent is continuing to track just below 2006, the year with the highest minimum of the past decade.
Most of the Arctic is covered with clouds, so the slow melt will continue.
Thin, high level clouds reflect outgoing IR and increase surface temperatures; lower, thick clouds prevent incoming insolation from reaching the surface thereby lowering surface temperatures. But since ice has a high albedo to begin with, and water has a much more significant thermal density to that of air, aren’t clouds rather meaningless at the low incidence angle at the polar regions?
When does ice melt faster…on cloudy days or on sunny days?
In the sun, it can also undergo sublimation.
Altogether now…
It’s worse than we thought!
It is quite interesting that NSIDC is showing much less ice than other sources. It is most obvious in Hudson Bay where they are showing almost no ice at all.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_bm_extent_hires.png
Look at how this compares with data from Canada.
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/Ice_Can/CMMBCTCA.gif
Are we running into more data manipulation?