PIOMAS on 31 January

As promised in the comments of my previous post, I am going to break down the difference between January 2015 and January 2016 in terms of region and thickness.

How is the Volume Pulse going?

Earlier this month I didn't have the time to look at January's PIOMAS data, and still don't really aim to cover PIOMAS in detail until April's data is out in early May. At that stage I will make my prediction for this year's SIPN. However I have been looking at how the volume pulse is going and thought I'd do a quick update on it.

Why is extent so low?

This post looks at why Northern Hemisphere (NH) sea ice extent is so low at present. A commenter Dreesen asked what I thought about it, and due to work pressures I hadn't looked at sea ice for weeks. The low sea ice is likely due to a combination of long term reduction due to global warming and weather in the North Atlantic. But temperatures in January were extreme, and I lack a convincing answer as to why.

(This post was largely written on Sunday but I've been too busy to do a final check and post until now.)