chubbs

This is a good summary. Every year is a roll of the dice but gradually the dice are being loaded. Recently winters have been the most problematic. Perhaps we will see some temporary sea ice rebound with reversion to more normal conditions this winter.

We are running below the trendline so can't give this prediction a gold star yet..

Just have to avoid unusually strong storms like 2012 or prolonged storminess like 2016.

July often reverses the June 500 mb tendency in the arctic with 2009+2015 being recent high height years in July and 2010+2012 relatively low.

That is my guess - there is less volume to lose late in the melt year. On a percentage basis, the volume anomaly is largest at the September low.

Hopefully not the sun.

Interesting charts. Highlights the difficulty in predicting sea ice, particularly a record low, with any lead time. Note though that the trend in 925 mb temps is upward so the dice are slowly being loaded.

PIOMAS is out for June. As expected volume loss was slower in May and June than 2012 and other recent big melt years, but 2017 has retained the lowest PIOMAS volume, not far from 2012 in the last week of June.

The SIPN June predictions have a median forecast a little below last year but well above 2012. Forecasts are for the average monthly extent in September with 2012 at 3.6 M. https://www.arcus.org/sipn/sea-ice-outlook/2017/june

There is no significant lag to a change in solar forcing but luckily solar forcing doesn't change very much. Solar irradiance varies by 0.25 Watts per square meter from the peak to the bottom of a normal solar cycle. Despite the current weak solar cycle, the earth's energy imbalance due to GHG has stayed around 0.8 W per square meter. In addition GHG forcing is increasing by roughly 0.4 W per square meter per decade, so even a repeat of the Maunder minimum isn't going to have much impact on the warming trend.

Wipneus' daily sea ice volume anomaly chart updated through May. The volume gap between 2017 and other years narrowed in May due to a relatively slow start to the melting season vs recent years. Melting accelerated though in the second half of May leaving a record low well within reach this year depending on the weather.

This is about the time we saw a pattern flip to lower arctic heights last year. Maybe we will see the reverse this year...or maybe not.

Forecasts are not that reliable currently so we will have to see how it plays out over the next couple of weeks. Currently I'm leaning for somewhere between 2007 and 2012. Volume is low but melting progress has been slow for both sea ice and snow. That would keep my 2018-19 guess for the next min alive.

Here is the past 30 days. Overall an intermediate regime, but with persistent flow from the Pacific to the Atlantic side.

In March I posted a CFSv2 forecast for April-June that called for above normal heights over the arctic. Too early for verification but that forecast doesn't look bad currently.

Daily sea ice anomaly and 12-month running mean from Zeke Hausfather. The 12-month mean has dropped more quickly in recent years drven by reduced cool season sea ice.

33% chance of a new record in 2017 per James Screen, 97% chance of bottom 3.

From Wipneus on ASIF - as is typically the case not much change in the volume anomaly in March. Yes, will take a 2008/2014 or even better a pre-2007 type year to avoid a September record.

Depending on details dipole is generally bad due to high pressure over Beaufort, warm air from Russia and increased fram transport.

CFS for April through June. CFS has been predicting that a dipole pattern will be favored this spring for a while now. Of course these long lead forecasts are quite uncertain. Posting this now to document for a later re-check.

PIOMASS volume is out for February. 2017 gained more volume than 2016 as conditions turned a little colder (still warmer than normal) but the spread between 2017 and other low volume years increased.

My irony meter is going offscale. Your description is much more apt for Fox news, Breitbart or similar than a civil service employee nearing retirement.

This is much to do about nothing, a sign of the times, "fake news": 1) The changes made in the NOAA update were not that large in the big scheme of things. 2) There are alternate data that show similar warming. 3) The most controversial part, the sea surface temperatures. have since been tested against independent data and were found to be better than other SST data sets. 4) The data is available and anyone can analyze as they see fit https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/02/07/as-the-planet-warms-doubters-launch-a-new-attack-on-a-famous-climate-change-study/?utm_term=.bf499617f6c8 https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-mail-sundays-astonishing-evidence-global-temperature-rise

Wipneus has updated PIOMASS sea ice volume for January. As expected, ice volume growth continued to lag in January increasing the shortfall vs. 2012 and 2013. In January, 2017 had roughly the same volume growth as last year, maintaining a roughly 2.3 1000 km^3 gap. If 2017 continues to have volume growth rates similar to 2016, then the volume peak this year should be somewhere around 20,000 km^3 in April.

Grabbed this chart from ASIF. Despite the different enso and NHemi temp and circulation, 2017 isn't far from 2016.