How is the August extent loss going?

I have previously posted about an apparent oscillation in the August extent loss in recent years, nearing the end of August it is a reasonable time to look at how August losses are going in light of that possible oscillation.



My post on the August extent loss examined the loss in more detail, no need to go into that now, you can read it if you want. But here is the headline graphic of that post.

I'll update that in September, but for now I have used NSIDC extent to update using losses from 1 August to 26 August.

The final point is for losses from 1 to 26 August, so this is an unfair comparison, and at present it suggests a low August loss which isn't correct as we have five days of extent loss to go.

My suggested oscillation is marked by peaks in 2004, 2008 and 2012, the next in the sequence should be 2016, but 2007 and 2011 losses for the whole of August should be just below 2 million kmsq, the next in that sequence of years is 2015. So is a loss this August of just below 2 million kmsq feasible given the loss through August so far?

August loss so far is 1.688 million kmsq, the average day to day loss for the last ten days was 0.055 million kmsq (with a lot of variance), with 5 days left, assuming that average persists, we'd see a further loss of 0.2775 million kmsq, that could take overall losses to 1.966 million kmsq. Which would land us right in the ball park of just below 2 million kmsq that the supposed oscillation would require.