The current northern hemisphere sea ice area is at 3.344 million sq. kilometers. This is 1.994 million square kilometers less than than average area for August 13th from 1979 to 2008. An area equivalent to Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Nevada is not covered with ice as it normally would be.
This is just a continuation of the trend towards less and less summer ice. Combined with the record minimum winter ice set last winter, the direction is unmistakable. The Arctic IS losing ice. The ice that is there is much thinner than it used to be making it that much easier for ice to melt each succeeding year.
Now changing weather conditions, changing currents, and changing winds will ensure that some minor recoveries in ice area may occur. The years after the record summer ice minimum of 2007 seemed to show some minor recovery since they did not exceed that record. However, for each year since 2007 the record minimum was less than the 1979-2008 norm by more than 2 std. deviations. That means that the old Arctic ice pattern is permanently changed.
The Arctic ice minimum for 2011 will happen in another four to five weeks. Looking at the graphs and the Arctic conditions now, The above picture is from Cryosphere Today. Notice the large areas that are blue or green. These are areas that that have much less than 100% ice coverage. In effect, they are like a huge ice slushy. The blue area could also melt before the minimum is set. As you can see, that is a large area. Gong by this, a record low of 2.0 to 2.5 million sq. kilometers could be set.
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