PIOMAS 29 February

PIOMAS data is now out. So here is a summary of the data based on the gridded data provided by the PIOMAS team. Once again thanks is due to the PIOMAS team for making this data available and up to date.

Record Total Precipitable Water through January and February

Below is a graph of Total Precipitable Water (TPW) through January and February from NCEP/NCAR.

Extreme Arctic Warmth Continued into February

NCEP/NCAR temperature data is now out for February 2015, it shows January's staggering warmth in the Arctic continuing.

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.)

2015 Record Temperature

As you already know 2015 was the warmest year on record in the instrumental record, at an anomaly of 0.87degC this is a substantial new record. Anyway, for what it's worth, here are a few comments and graphs (late because I've been too busy at work).