"Graham P Davis" wrote in message
news:20120806194025.7e5f9159@home-1...

The AMSR-2 data is still not available; see
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/ssmis/index.html for more info and
different daily representation of the data.


Yes that's an interesting and more detailed representation, which confirms
that the melting is continuing apace, as is normal at this time of year I
guess. What's slightly frustrating is the grey border that seems to be show
up or be applied to much of the coastlines. This can't be ice in most places
(eg Cornwall) but what is it? Too wide to be beaches. Maybe it's just
relatively shallow coastal water (or an artefact of the imaging or artistic
licence)? This border is frustrating because it makes it difficult to see
which Arctic straits are open, which seems to be important because one thing
the map does bring home is that the NW passage especially has apparently to
pass through various relatively narrow straits one way or another through
the Canadian Arctic archipelago. The NE passage seems to be much more open
other than the strait to the south of Severnya Zemlya.

JGD

On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:43:39 +0100
"johnd" wrote:


"Graham P Davis" wrote in message
news:20120806194025.7e5f9159@home-1...

The AMSR-2 data is still not available; see
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/ssmis/index.html for more info and
different daily representation of the data.


Yes that's an interesting and more detailed representation, which
confirms that the melting is continuing apace, as is normal at this
time of year I guess. What's slightly frustrating is the grey border
that seems to be show up or be applied to much of the coastlines.
This can't be ice in most places (eg Cornwall) but what is it? Too
wide to be beaches. Maybe it's just relatively shallow coastal water
(or an artefact of the imaging or artistic licence)? This border is
frustrating because it makes it difficult to see which Arctic straits
are open, which seems to be important because one thing the map does
bring home is that the NW passage especially has apparently to pass
through various relatively narrow straits one way or another through
the Canadian Arctic archipelago. The NE passage seems to be much more
open other than the strait to the south of Severnya Zemlya.

JGD


The irritating border should go when the AMSR-2 data becomes available.

Melting over the past week or so has proceeded faster than usual.
Possible explanation can be found he
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/20...in-the-arctic/

--
Graham Davis, Bracknell, Berks. E-mail: change 'boy' to 'man'
"A neighbour put his budgerigar in the mincing machine and invented
shredded tweet." - Chic Murray
openSUSE Linux: http://www.opensuse.org/en/

johnd wrote:
"Graham P Davis" wrote in message
news:20120806194025.7e5f9159@home-1...

The AMSR-2 data is still not available; see
http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/ssmis/index.html for more info and
different daily representation of the data.


Yes that's an interesting and more detailed representation, which
confirms that the melting is continuing apace, as is normal at this
time of year I guess. What's slightly frustrating is the grey border
that seems to be show up or be applied to much of the coastlines.
This can't be ice in most places (eg Cornwall) but what is it? Too
wide to be beaches. Maybe it's just relatively shallow coastal water
(or an artefact of the imaging or artistic licence)? This border is
frustrating because it makes it difficult to see which Arctic straits
are open, which seems to be important because one thing the map does
bring home is that the NW passage especially has apparently to pass
through various relatively narrow straits one way or another through
the Canadian Arctic archipelago. The NE passage seems to be much more
open other than the strait to the south of Severnya Zemlya.
JGD

A quote from Paul Simons' article in yesterday's Times is interesting in
this context:

"Usually during the summer the jet stream lies much further north of the UK,
out of harm's way. The question is why has it slipped so far south this
summer?. One reason was the lack of snow in northern Russia and Canada last
winter, which quickly melted away in spring and upset major weather
patterns. The Arctic sea ice is also under suspicion, and this week
scientists at University College London revealed from satellite pictures
that the loss of Arctic sea ice in the summer is worse than previously
thought. In fact, the ice is melting so rapidly that it could completely
disappear for a brief spell in summer by the end of the decade."

Roger

There is an article here on the Arctic sea ice:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19244895
Scientists at UCL are now predicting that the Arctic will be ice free in
summer by around 2020.

Cheers, Alastair.