The Higher Ice concentration levels ie 30%+ is doing quite well, pretty much backing up PIPS2 take on this years Ice thickness which is responding to the colder temps 80N....

Danish Meteorological Institute Arctic Sea Ice Extent - 30% or greater

Cryosphere Today - extent 15% or greater - click to enlarge

Cryosphere Today - this date compared with 2007 - click to enlarge (thanks to Ric Werme)

 And with Antarctic still running above average...

Sea Ice Page

Global Sea Ice Reference Page: Arctic and Antarctic current graphs and imagery

Given the intense interest in Arctic Sea Ice extent this year, I’ve decided to put all the sea ice graphs in one handy place for easy nail biting reference. All images are automatically updated immediately upon update at their source.

Shortlink for this page: http://wp.me/P7y4l-5Kc (suitable for blog or Twitter comments)

Arctic Sea Ice Imagery:

Antarctic Graphs:

The Global anomaly is about 500k below average. 

T

Personally I'm happy that the kind of release that may have 'aided and abetted' the last upset to the gulf stream will not happen today?

The melt/freshwater output will be further south (and already more modified?) but there are just not the volumes to compete with the end of the last ice age 'super lakes' to discharge (over a year) that volume of fresh water across a specific 'Gyre' today?

Ah, but at least Gray-Wolf provides a rationale for his comments, as opposed to your predictably hollow mini-rants.

If only you could commit your colourful writing style to something more useful and interesting.   Have you ever thought of going and writing for Mills and Boon?

Gandalf, do you ever do anything else but sit on here waiting to pounce with your rude sarcastic comments?

I  moderate two forums and post on several others, but have never encountered such an obnoxious manner of posting as you favour
Your aim presumably is to close threads down if you don't like the way they are heading?
Or intimidate and bully those you feel might influence in ways you don't like?

I see you've been to the Watts site again and lifted his latest display of analysis charts.  Tellingly, I see even Watts isn't trying to put any spin on the numbers, which tells you something.

A few observations:

1. The 30% ice chart shows only the same basic message as the 15% one, which is that 2010 is proceeding much as the other years of this century and significantly below the norms for the last quarter of the 21th century


2. The 30% chart has no bearing whatsoever on ice thickness.  We have debated this point before in here.


3. You seem to have a completely upside down understanding about Antarctic sea ice.       More sea ice in the seas around Antarctica reflect greater loss of land-based ice and greater melt and as such give the opposite message to that for the Arctic.  More is worse.

Have you nothing better to do Robert or have you run out of things to lift from the Watts site?

I'd describe your attitude as laughable but that would be giving it more credence than it deserves.  Vacuous might be closer.

Guy's ?

No need eh?

The truth will out.

 As folk are ever clear on highlighting "it's the satellite era" and the truth will out.

Deny it's so and you have to allow the records (back to the 1500's) of Arctic sea ice extent behaviour (it seems you either entertain one or the other and nether the Twain shall meet.....) which shows a dramatic reduction, or the sat record , which shows a further dramatic reduction......

(We'll not mention the Paleocrystic ice loss or there'll be bother.....Shhhhh)

I was making an entirely accurate observation - do you have a problem with that?

Everything that Robertski posted is widely available from the original sources. I find it highly telling that he runs off to Watts-Up-With-That comfort-blanket every time.

We'll ignore the point that his commentary is inaccurate and misleading - predictably so, because there is no good news to report about the state of the Arctic and Antarctic ice, as the data confirm - assuming you are prepared to go to the data and make up your own mind instead of being spoon fed by a sceptic with a website.

You need to get into the real world and think for yourself instead of defending lost causes Four.

More unpleasant personal attacks, what is the problem Ganadalf, you fly into a tirade of abuse at the slightest thing.
I think you spend too much time on here and it's causing you a lot of stress.

No, I just take exception to your antics in here.  I was rather hoping that we might move on but you and Robertski seem unable to avoid making unnecessary jibes.

Why do you find it impossible to weigh the merits of the information and opinions rather than flying off repeatedly into one of your mini-rants? 

Anyhow , back to the ice!

We seem to have a "Game of 2 half's" at the moment with the Arctic Basin full (with no anom to speak of) but the surrounding sea areas not doing so well;

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.1.html

so how would folk account for this difference above , and below, 80N?

Something to do with it only being mid-November?

Not sure - we should be 2 months into the refreeze by now.

I suspect it has something to do with thinning and break-up of the ice sheet.....

I'm struggling here 4WD. We have a 79'-08' 'average' , the ice area falls below this figure across most all sea areas outside the central basin and " it's November" is supposed to elucidate to all our lurkers why this should be?

We (posters) have our understanding of the workings of the arctic but the 'lurkers' , by definition, are still gaining enough knowledge (both of site and subject) to post here. what has your observation brought to them in reality?

Mid -Nov's prior 79' seem to have accrued far more ice by this point than our '07' augmented average yet we still trail this 'modern' average.

Explain in your " mid -November " terminology why you figure this to be either a relevant or pertinent observation as it appears that even the 'posters are having difficulties in understanding your drift?

No, I don't think I would.  Arctic ice extent as of yesterday is within a whisker of a date record low once again.   Unless you are trying to argue that the synoptics are unique, which I know you are not, then something else must be going on, mustn't it?

PS: Do you have any idea what point Four was trying to make?

I have of late , and wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth........

I hear that it was fourtold.....

LOL!

C'mon guy's now? The Arctic (to me) is behaving quite queer (to my view?) and we could do with limiting our little sojourns (to the "Hoax" thread at least?) whilst we deal with such fascinating times?

As you know, I agree with you on this.

The problem is that we need to wait to see how conditions develop over several more cycles.  If we are correct then, particularly with another run of 2007 summer synoptics, we may well see new records set for the summer (September) minimum.   That would almost certainly nail the ENSO argument about residual warmth in the oceans.   If we see a recovery of the ice to the levels normal in the last quarter of the 20th century then a re-think will be in order.

A quick update on the ice extent data (15% or more).

Yesterday saw a small decline in ice extent, almost certainly giving us a new date record for the lowest extent, at 9,378k.  That value is 2 million sq km below the 1979-2000 norm for this date.

In a normal 1979-2000 winter we would expect to hit 12 million by the end of November and around 14 million by Xmas.

Here's a story about polar bears stuck on the shore of Hudson Bay because the ice is a month late this year.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/Hungry+polar+bears+loiter+Hudson+coast+waiting/3851693/story.html