Global Surface Air & Sea Temperatures: Current Conditions and Future Prospects

[cheeky_monkey]

1 hour ago, Ed Stone said:

Have you not listened to the outpourings from the orange-coloured imbecile who lives in The White House?

no more than i listen to the imbecile who resides at 10 downing street ..so doesn't really answer the q?

[Gray-Wolf]

So Ozz is still setting global temp records in March?

I get the feeling that we , in the North, have ours to come!

[Rambo]

10 hours ago, Gray-Wolf said:

So Ozz is still setting global temp records in March?

I get the feeling that we , in the North, have ours to come!

Why? 

[Gray-Wolf]

19 minutes ago, Rambo said:

Why? 

Why not? I

If you look at the heat records that have been set over our 'winter' , whilst the southern hemisphere have been smashing their summer records, it would appear that we are already starting the global year 'warm'?

With more land surface in our hemisphere we should find ourselves heating faster than the mainly ocean covered southern hemisphere did over its summer spree of record breaking?

If we look at our 'cold areas' over winter you'll quickly see that they flank the Pacific entrance into the Arctic Basin. The low Sea ice in Bering hints at what has been going on with WAA pushing in through the straights and displacing Arctic airs south over Canada/U.S. and Eastern Eurasia?

So will this continue into the year or will both sides of that cold anom just rapidly warm as the sun returns?

The draw down that Arctic air spread over those regions must have had will go and the positives, that still kept Jan/Feb global temps high, will be augmented by the areas that were drawing it down.

We still see no Nino forcing global temps yet we are still seeing high temp anoms. If Nino does form will this cool the planet?

 

[Methuselah]

15 minutes ago, Gray-Wolf said:

Why not? I

If you look at the heat records that have been set over our 'winter' , whilst the southern hemisphere have been smashing their summer records, it would appear that we are already starting the global year 'warm'?

With more land surface in our hemisphere we should find ourselves heating faster than the mainly ocean covered southern hemisphere did over its summer spree of record breaking?

If we look at our 'cold areas' over winter you'll quickly see that they flank the Pacific entrance into the Arctic Basin. The low Sea ice in Bering hints at what has been going on with WAA pushing in through the straights and displacing Arctic airs south over Canada/U.S. and Eastern Eurasia?

So will this continue into the year or will both sides of that cold anom just rapidly warm as the sun returns?

The draw down that Arctic air spread over those regions must have had will go and the positives, that still kept Jan/Feb global temps high, will be augmented by the areas that were drawing it down.

We still see no Nino forcing global temps yet we are still seeing high temp anoms. If Nino does form will this cool the planet?

 

Indeed, Ian...To most of us, the plethora of all-time high-temp anomalies, world-wide, would at least imply that the planet is warming...? But, alas, to some, the record cold in Nebraska far outweighs all that: the world is (according to the globe's premier climate scientist, Lord Lawson et. al.) heading into the deep freeze..?

[Gray-Wolf]

Hi Pete!

Just imagine that a combination of negative Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation and Chineses 'dirty pollution' had done a number both on global weather patterns ( via butterfly's wing) and global temps since the late 90's peaking in the late noughties when China decided it did not want to kill all its urban worker via poor air quality.

Did this 'clean up' lead to more solar hitting parts of the Pacific and so pushed the flip to IPO positive ( heat left at the surface and so entering the climate system rather than it being buried in the upper ocean)

Since the IPO flip positive we saw the super Nino push temps to new record values? now we have fallen back into the 'averages' but these appear to be on the up and up as we settle into the new forcings from IPO/China

There must be those who 'used' the forced cooling from the late 90's to push their 'climate change Denier' agenda realising that the 'slowdown' in rates of warming would , naturally, be swapped out for accelerated rates of warming.

We are now in that period and not up to speed yet but we are still seeing top 5 years being posted each year since the ipo flip in 2014 

If IPO positive can put 0.5c temp rise over impacted regions surely it's negative phase would force a similar 'negative' impact which will now be falling away?

Expect another high end finish for global temps this year and I don't think you'll be disappointed!

[Gray-Wolf]

I'll tell you of a secret fear I have been harbouring for nearly 2 decades now Pete.

I worry our climate system , if pushed hard enough and for long enough , will suddenly ( relatively) cycle up to the next stable setting for the forcings available?

It would seem a great number of folk dialed down their concerns over the state of the climate over the so called 'pause' years.

Since 2014's flip in the naturals (IPO/PDO) I think we may have crossed a threshold and our global climate is now 'reorganising' to the 'new' settings?

The Super Nino threw a bit of a spanner into the works but last year saw us finally at the end of those peturbations and a clearer view of the types of weather events we will now need settle into. That includes the propensity for ridging over the UK I believe I have been seeing evolve this past 3 or 4 years ( away from the 'trough' years?).

The odd 'final warming' over Antarctica, as it moved into southern spring, seemed to set the tone for their summer of record high temps? I think that we will now see this push into our Hemisphere ( as our record temps over late Feb in NW Europe showed?) and set us up for a similar record breaking summer across the Hemisphere? If it pans out then we have issues with both permafrost and sea ice as that heat works its way north.

We will no doubt see developments across Yamals mystery hummocks but will we see another step down in sea ice cover/volume also?

Either of those events could bring instant impact?

That aside we have seen our first 20c 850 Hpa temp over the north of Africa for the year in the last couple of runs and , across winter, we have seen airs drawn in from that quarter?

If N.Africa begins to itself set heat records then what will we see if our Azores ridge drifts east over us ( again) and taps into that air mass? What kind of cargo could it pick up on its travels esp. if it takes the Biscay route?

Though we missed them last year saw some big storms run through N.France and into Holland/Germany. As with the snow might we find the folk bemoaning our luck suddenly find themselves regretting what they wished for if we suffer a direct hit from a beastie bigger than last years offerings?

[cheeky_monkey]

5 hours ago, Gray-Wolf said:

Why not? I

If you look at the heat records that have been set over our 'winter' , whilst the southern hemisphere have been smashing their summer records, it would appear that we are already starting the global year 'warm'?

With more land surface in our hemisphere we should find ourselves heating faster than the mainly ocean covered southern hemisphere did over its summer spree of record breaking?If

 

seems on first look only Australia set new records..so bit of a stretch to say the southern hemisphere has been smashing records?

[BornFromTheVoid]

31 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

seems on first look only Australia set new records..so bit of a stretch to say the southern hemisphere has been smashing records?

Not too much of a stretch considering Australia set, among other records, the hottest air temperature ever measured in March for the planet.
https://www.news.com.au/national/western-australia/roebourne-records-hottest-march-temperature-anywhere-in-the-world/news-story/8b94258a95aa1d7cfedd2aa50a2c47e0

Many parts of South America appear to have set records in January too
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201901
 

[cheeky_monkey]

1 hour ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

Not too much of a stretch considering Australia set, among other records, the hottest air temperature ever measured in March for the planet.
https://www.news.com.au/national/western-australia/roebourne-records-hottest-march-temperature-anywhere-in-the-world/news-story/8b94258a95aa1d7cfedd2aa50a2c47e0

Many parts of South America appear to have set records in January too
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201901
 

even so bit like me saying the USA and Canada smashed records for cold this season and then saying the whole Northern Hemisphere was smashing cold records when we know that's incorrect.

[Methuselah]

Just now, cheeky_monkey said:

even so bit like me saying the USA and Canada smashed records for cold this season and then saying the whole Northern Hemisphere was smashing cold records when we know that's incorrect.

Hardly!

[cheeky_monkey]

16 minutes ago, Ed Stone said:

Hardly!

tis so..North America is a bigger land mass than Australia ..where they smashing records in the Southern half of Africa or New Zealand etc??

[Methuselah]

On 10/03/2019 at 16:03, Gray-Wolf said:

Culler , with thanks ,from Weather underground.

Helps us make sense of the high global temps for jan and feb?

 

 

A chronology of 2018-19 winter/summer temperature records from around the world

Here is how the climatological northern winter/southern summer played out day-by-day between December 1, 2018, and February 28, 2019. Only records that one would consider “significant” are included (i.e., monthly temperature records on the national scale and all-time records for cities, states, and countries). Since all of the world’s nations except the United States use Celsius as their primary scale, all temperatures below except U.S. records originated in Celsius and are converted to Fahrenheit.

DECEMBER 2018

Dec. 4: 29.8°C (85.6°F) Kagamihara (Miyakojima Prefecture), Japan. National monthly record excluding Marcus Island.

Dec. 4: 33.6°C (92.5°F) Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. National monthly record (former record 32.9°C at Tainan in 1974).

Dec. 8: 34.0°C (93.2°F) Praia, Cabo Verde. Territorial monthly record (former record 33.6°C at Praia in 2002).

Dec. 22: 37.5°C (99.5°F) Chon Buri, Thailand. National monthly record.

Dec. 23: 37.6°C (99.7°F) Karwar, India. Reliable national monthly record (higher and probably-unreliable figures have been reported in the past at other locations and years)

Dec. 27: 46.3°C (115.3°F) Skukuza, South Africa. All-time record for any month.

Dec. 29: 29.0°C (84.2°F) minimum daily temperature at Bangkok, Thailand. Warmest daily minimum ever measured in December for the Northern Hemisphere.

December as a whole: Second warmest December globally on record since 1880.

Figure 1. A map outlining the more significant temperature records set in New Zealand during the heat wave of January 28-31, 2019. Image credit: NIWA, the New Zealand meteorological service.

JANUARY 2019

Jan. 19: 31.6°C (88.9°F) Christmas Island, Australia. All-time territorial record for any month.

Jan. 24: 46.6°C (115.9°F) Adelaide, Australia. All-time record for site. The 49.5°C (121.1°F) at Port Augusta is the highest temperature ever measured on the coast of any ocean in the Southern Hemisphere.

Jan. 24: 38.7°C (101.2°F) Namacunde, Angola. National monthly record.

Jan. 25: 37.0°C (98.6°F) Pointe des Trois-Bassins, Reunion Island. All-time territorial record for any month. Former record was 36.9°C at Le Port on two occasions.

Jan. 26: 36.6°C (97.9°F) daily minimum at Wanaaring (Borrona Downs), NSW, Australia. All-time national high minimum and world record high minimum for month of January.

Jan. 26: 38.3°C (100.9°F) Santiago, Chile (Quinta Normal, the city’s official site). All-time record for city. 37.7°C observed at Pudahuel Airport in Santiago as well. Previous record for Quinta Normal 37.4°C on Jan. 25, 2017. Also, Chilean regional all-time heat records were set at Santa Maria (Valparaiso Region) with 42.5°C (108.5°F) and at Huechun (Metropolitan Region) with 41.9° (107.4°F).

Jan. 26: 44.0°C (111.2°F) Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay. National monthly record (all-time record is 45.0°C at Prats Gill on Nov. 14, 2009).

Jan. 27: -46°F (-43.3°C) International Falls, Minnesota, USA. Ties all-time minimum for site (excludes readings from 1909 at different location).

Jan. 31: -38°F (-38.9°C) Mt. Carroll, Illinois, USA. All-time state cold record. Also all-time minimum records set at Moline, Illinois (-33°F) and Rockford, Illinois (-31°F).

Jan. 31: 38.4°C (101.1°F) Hanmer Forrest, New Zealand. All-time record set here and at 11 other New Zealand sites.

January as a whole: Warmest month on record for Australia. Warmest January on record for Bangkok, Thailand (avg. 29.3°C/84.7°F). Third warmest January globally on record.

Figure 2. A map summarizing some of the significant temperature records set in Chile during the late January and early February heat waves. Image credit: Meteochile.

FEBRUARY 2019

Feb. 1-4: Chile heat wave breaks all-time records at 10 cities, with temperatures ranging from 35.1°C (95.2°F) to 40.7°C (105.3°F). A 40.7°C at Traiguen is perhaps the most southerly 40°C+ reading ever measured on Earth.

Feb. 4: Argentina: 38.2°C (100.8°F) at Perito Moreno, 35.8°C (96.6°F) Rio Gallegos, 30.8°C (87.4°F) Rio Grande. All-time site records (the latter is also a record for the Tierra del Fuego region).

Feb. 5: 21.7°C (71.1°F) Sea Lion Island, Falkland Islands. All-time record and first 20°C+ ever measured at site.

Feb. 7: -46.5°C (-51.7°F) Coronach, Saskatchewan, Canada (near Montana border). All-time cold record for any month.

Feb. 8: -13.8°C (7.2°F) Shigeno Inui, Japan. All-time cold record.

Feb. 9: -30.7°C (-23.3°F) Lake Akan, Hokkaido, Japan. All-time cold record. Also all-time cold record at Teshikaga (-26.7°C) and Taika (-29.8°C).

Feb. 11: -12.6°C (9.3°F) Mauna Kea Summit, Hawaii. Possible all-time state record minimum.

Feb. 15: 42.4°C (108.3°F) Traiguen, Chile. New national monthly record.

Feb. 16: 41.0°C (105.8°F) Espinheira, Angola. All-time national record for any month.

Feb. 17: 37.1°C (98.8°F) Salvador, Brazil. All-time record. This is a very temperate location that rarely experiences extreme highs or lows.

Figure 3. Three of the four member nations of the United Kingdom saw their warmest February temperatures on record in 2019. All temperatures shown are in degrees Celsius. The event brought the U.K. its first temperature above 70° ever recorded during a winter month. At the same time, Los Angeles failed to hit 70°F for the first February since records began in 1878. Image credit: UK Met Office.

Europe’s phenomenal February heat wave

From February 24 until the end of the month (February 28), much of Europe experienced its most extreme February and/or climatological winter (Dec.-Feb) heat wave on record. Here is a summary of the national records set.

Feb. 26

21.2°C (70.2°F) Kew Gardens, London, United Kingdom. National monthly record and warmest winter day on record. The previous U.K. winter record was 19.7°C at Greenwich Observatory, Feb. 13, 1998.

The independent Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey also set February temperature records with 18.3°C (64.9°F) and 16.1°C (61.0°) respectively.

15.8°C (60.4°F) Tirstrup, Denmark. Ties national monthly record also set at Copenhagen on Feb. 25, 1990.

16.7°C (62.1°F) Karlshamn, Sweden. National monthly record. Previous record 16.5°C at Vastervik on Feb. 19, 1961.

Feb. 27

20.5°C (68.9°F) Arcen, Netherlands. National monthly record. Previous record 20.4°C at Oost-Maarland on Feb. 24, 1990.

22.4°C (72.3°F) Angleur, Belgium. National monthly record. Previous record 21.1°C at Angleur on Feb. 24, 1990

22.5°C (72.5°F) Remich, Luxembourg. National monthly record. Previous record 20.0°C at Remich in late February 1960.

26.1°C (79.0°F) Borda Vidal, Andorra. National monthly record. This figure is questionable, but a confirmed 22.5°C was observed at Freda, which would be the monthly record in any case. Previous record 22.3°C at Borda Vidal in Feb. 2011.

Feb. 28

24.2°C (75.6°F) at both Gussing and Deutschlandsberg, Austria. National monthly record. Previous record 23.6°C at Bruck an der Mur on Feb. 29, 1960.

23.5°C (74.3°F) Sarver, Hungary. National monthly record. Previous record 22.9°C at Rabagyarmat on Feb. 12, 1998.

20.6°C (69.1°F) Hurbanovo and Ziharec, Slovakia. National monthly record. Previous record 20.3°C at Bratislava on Feb. 22, 2016.

20.3°C (68.5°F) Chiesanuova, San Marino. Ties national monthly record.

24.1°C (74.7°F) Gacnik, Slovenia. National monthly record. Previous record 24.0°C at Vedrijan on Feb. 22, 1990.

I think there are quite a few Southern Hemisphere locations listed in Ian's above post, CM, that are most definitely not in Australia...At any rate, neither Tierra Del Fuego nor Angola nor the Falklands were, way back in the distant past, when I learned geography...although there might have been some plate tectonics, since ar were a lud!

[BornFromTheVoid]

2 hours ago, cheeky_monkey said:

even so bit like me saying the USA and Canada smashed records for cold this season and then saying the whole Northern Hemisphere was smashing cold records when we know that's incorrect.

There were loads of warm records set in the northern hemisphere too, just as many, if not more than the cold records, with more all time and national warm records. Warm records in winter just aren't as flashy looking or dramatic, and thus as newsworthy as cold.
If you can find way more cold records than warm in the southern hemisphere, then it might be somewhat comparable. Otherwise it simply is not.

[Gray-Wolf]

Sorry you are cold C.M.

 I was flooded whilst most were dry so I understand what its like to be a minority event but 'COLD' was a minority event this past 3 months was it not?

[Methuselah]

21 hours ago, Gray-Wolf said:

I'll tell you of a secret fear I have been harbouring for nearly 2 decades now Pete.

I worry our climate system , if pushed hard enough and for long enough , will suddenly ( relatively) cycle up to the next stable setting for the forcings available?

It would seem a great number of folk dialed down their concerns over the state of the climate over the so called 'pause' years.

Since 2014's flip in the naturals (IPO/PDO) I think we may have crossed a threshold and our global climate is now 'reorganising' to the 'new' settings?

The Super Nino threw a bit of a spanner into the works but last year saw us finally at the end of those peturbations and a clearer view of the types of weather events we will now need settle into. That includes the propensity for ridging over the UK I believe I have been seeing evolve this past 3 or 4 years ( away from the 'trough' years?).

The odd 'final warming' over Antarctica, as it moved into southern spring, seemed to set the tone for their summer of record high temps? I think that we will now see this push into our Hemisphere ( as our record temps over late Feb in NW Europe showed?) and set us up for a similar record breaking summer across the Hemisphere? If it pans out then we have issues with both permafrost and sea ice as that heat works its way north.

We will no doubt see developments across Yamals mystery hummocks but will we see another step down in sea ice cover/volume also?

Either of those events could bring instant impact?

That aside we have seen our first 20c 850 Hpa temp over the north of Africa for the year in the last couple of runs and , across winter, we have seen airs drawn in from that quarter?

If N.Africa begins to itself set heat records then what will we see if our Azores ridge drifts east over us ( again) and taps into that air mass? What kind of cargo could it pick up on its travels esp. if it takes the Biscay route?

Though we missed them last year saw some big storms run through N.France and into Holland/Germany. As with the snow might we find the folk bemoaning our luck suddenly find themselves regretting what they wished for if we suffer a direct hit from a beastie bigger than last years offerings?

I have similar fears myself, Ian...IMO planet Earth was not 'created' by some anthropocentric deity and, someday, we will realise just how much damage we are doing; there is no 'man upstairs' who tinkers with things just so as to keep them 'just right' for human occupancy...And as for the CCD Industry:

When it suits them, Earth's climate is always changing, as GHG-concentrations change naturally (100% true BTW). Then, when that argument falls flat, our doubling or tripling atmospheric CO2 concentration (by our excessive burning of fossil fuels) will have no impact whatsoever.

So,which is it, guys? When is CO2 a GHG or is it not a GHG? For mankind's contribution to be as benign and deniers insist really would require Divine Intervention...

 

[BornFromTheVoid]

Latest ENSO update from NOAA: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

Nino likely to last through spring and summer, and a 50% chance of still being around come years end.
ONI index is following 2015 quite closely, and with the warm pool continuing to grow, the above probabilities seem very much plausible.

Of interest to this thread is the pattern matching with 2015. That year, we'll remember, is the 2nd warmest year on record, by a small margin (on most data sets). So far this year we've been close to or above the 2015 global temperature values, with March likely to be much warmer. As ENSO begins to exert more of an influence on global temperatures through spring and summer, we may well start setting new record monthly values, and challenge for the warmest year on record.

Edited March 19, 2019 by BornFromTheVoid

[Derecho]

10 hours ago, BornFromTheVoid said:

Latest ENSO update from NOAA: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

Nino likely to last through spring and summer, and a 50% chance of still being around come years end.
ONI index is following 2015 quite closely, and with the warm pool continuing to grow, the above probabilities seem very much plausible.

Of interest to this thread is the pattern matching with 2015. That year, we'll remember, is the 2nd warmest year on record, by a small margin (on most data sets). So far this year we've been close to or above the 2015 global temperature values, with March likely to be much warmer. As ENSO begins to exert more of an influence on global temperatures through spring and summer, we may well start setting new record monthly values, and challenge for the warmest year on record.

Indeed and comparing the average anomaly for March so far compared to February highlights this strongly:

 March 2019 - Upto the 17th

 February 2019

 

It has been an exceptional couple of weeks around Alaska and Siberia.... arctic sea ice could melt very quickly near these regions although things have been a bit better on the Atlantic side.

[Devonian]

Incredible relative warmth in the western Arctic

 

[reef]

Yes, vast areas of the Arctic are well above normal. We're at what should be the coldest point of the year up there and the lack of cold away from Greenland is astonishing.

You have to go over 1000km north of Alaska to find a 2M temperature of -6C or below and there's little below -15C in all of Siberia.

[karyo]

Really depressing to see the Arctic in such a state! Scary to think what the summer melt will do. 

[cheeky_monkey]

4 hours ago, karyo said:

Really depressing to see the Arctic in such a state! Scary to think what the summer melt will do. 

Again what state is the Arctic in that's any different to the last decade??..every year since 2007 there is this mass panic about the summer melt season..according to some back then we were starring down the barrel of an ice free summer arctic as soon as 2013..i never see any debate as to why after a series of poor melt seasons culminating in 2012..there have been no further erosion of summer ice extent since..if anything sea ice thickness has increased some what since esp on the Canadian side of the arctic....lets see if this is the year that the reduction of summer ice resumes?

[BornFromTheVoid]

5 hours ago, cheeky_monkey said:

Again what state is the Arctic in that's any different to the last decade??..every year since 2007 there is this mass panic about the summer melt season..according to some back then we were starring down the barrel of an ice free summer arctic as soon as 2013..i never see any debate as to why after a series of poor melt seasons culminating in 2012..there have been no further erosion of summer ice extent since..if anything sea ice thickness has increased some what since esp on the Canadian side of the arctic....lets see if this is the year that the reduction of summer ice resumes?

Don't you think this sounds a lot like the "no warming since 1998" argument? The trend is still very clear and we're still regularly setting record lows for individual months and seasons, we just haven't had things line up to occur in September for a few years. With the large week to week, month to month and year to year variability, it can, admittedly, make it hard to see the wood for the trees (much like the temperature record). Thus you can make all kinds of claims based on short time spans. But if you step back and look at the trends over several decades, and especially longer term, the decline in ice cover become unmistakable.
 

This idea that many people were predicting ice free in 2013 is another trope oft repeated through the usual anti-science blogs. It was one interview based on one study, that made this prediction. Science is based on consensus data and forecasts, not outliers.
The consensus for when we will see an the first ice free end of summer in the Arctic has gone from the end of the century about 15-20 years ago, down towards the 2030s in the last 5-10 years. If needed, I can track down the particular studies, but even the latest IPCC is still going regularly ice free (less than 1 million km2) for mid century, and that is supposed to represent the consensus.

[Gray-Wolf]

This is the other issue that ( I believe) is shot through AGW and the witnessing of it by most folk not directly involved in study/research on the subject?

To most folk rain is rain and flooding is flooding so if it is not them being repeatedly flooded in a way they were never prone to before most folk will just say 'oh dear, such and such a place has flooded'. The same with the Arctic basin and merely engaging in 'cherry picked' observation to note 'same'

If the extent/area are running at 2000's levels but the ice never went below minus 15 (compared to the 2000's ice which would drop far lower over winter) is it 'Just the same' or does that invisible lack of cold conditioning make it very different ice?

Same as the 'months worth of rain in a day' frequency around the world is increasing but what if that is a the cost of low rainfall events across the rest of that month? Will folk just cry " the stats say it was an average rainfall month!" and ignore that it all occurred across one day?

As for the basin this year? Another naked Bering and impacted Chukchi coupled with our dearth of ice our side all with some ridiculous high temps around the basin does not fill me with hope of a 'retentive' year!

[Methuselah]

5 minutes ago, Gray-Wolf said:

This is the other issue that ( I believe) is shot through AGW and the witnessing of it by most folk not directly involved in study/research on the subject?

To most folk rain is rain and flooding is flooding so if it is not them being repeatedly flooded in a way they were never prone to before most folk will just say 'oh dear, such and such a place has flooded'. The same with the Arctic basin and merely engaging in 'cherry picked' observation to note 'same'

If the extent/area are running at 2000's levels but the ice never went below minus 15 (compared to the 2000's ice which would drop far lower over winter) is it 'Just the same' or does that invisible lack of cold conditioning make it very different ice?

Same as the 'months worth of rain in a day' frequency around the world is increasing but what if that is a the cost of low rainfall events across the rest of that month? Will folk just cry " the stats say it was an average rainfall month!" and ignore that it all occurred across one day?

As for the basin this year? Another naked Bering and impacted Chukchi coupled with our dearth of ice our side all with some ridiculous high temps around the basin does not fill me with hope of a 'retentive' year!

IMO, there are only two categories of people keep trying to deny the veracity of AGW: one is genuinely ignorant (for which educators must share the blame) the other is deliberately cynical, in that they know full well what the  long-term ramifications are but would rather line their own pockets today than help solve the problems of tomorrow?

In some ways, it's similar to when certain individuals help manufacture a run on the pound, and then bet on one happening...?