BLOGGER'S NOTE, August 11: vast stretches of the Arctic Sea ice are quite thin -- in the range of 10-20 cm only -- and if you look down at the bottom of this post, you will see a graphic of the 2-m temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere that shows that temperatures are very high in northwestern Canada and Siberia near the Arctic Sea; thus, it seems that we can expect much of the very thin ice to melt in the next few days, unless colder air moves in.

BLOGGER'S NOTE, August 10: for a new set of graphics that give much more detailed information, go to the bottom of this particular post.

BE SURE TO CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO ENLARGE THE DETAIL.

From Polar View at the Technical University of Denmark (http://www.seaice.dk/):
BELOW: Graphic from August 10, 2008:



From the Cryosphere Today site (run by the Universities of Illinois and Colorado), a comparison of the Arctic on August 9 and July 22, 2007 and 2008:


Go to this link and put in dates for comparison -- the most recent day is usually available before the evening: http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh


The graphics below are from NOAA of global sea surface temperature anomalies on August 7 and July 24, 2008.


Link to updated graphics: http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/climo.html


The image below is a NOAA graphic of the 500-hPa height anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere on June 9, 2008. Click on the link below the graphic to see the most recent 30-day animation.

Link to past 30-days' animation: http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/intraseasonal/z500_nh_anim.shtml


BELOW: from Bremen University, a graphic of the Arctic Sea Ice extent, on August 10, 2008 (be sure to click on it in order to see the detail):

Link to the graphics above (occasionally data are missing and are represented by grey areas -- normally, these areas will be filled in by the morning of the following day): http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/amsre.html




ABOVE: visual ice cover, August 10, 2008.
BELOW: July 24, 2008 (from Bremen University).

Link to updated images: http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/arctic_AMSRE_visual.png






Link to photos (NOTE: to see photos from other days from 2008, change the 222 to the number of the day that you want, e.g., 222 is August 9th, and 208 is July 26th, and so forth): http://manati.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/ice_image21/D08222.NHEAVEH.GIF


BELOW: from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, a graphic of Arctic Sea ice extent for the current and past years, August 9, 2008. The latest value : 6,417,656 km²:

Link to graphic: http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm


BELOW: National Snow and Ice Data Center graph of Arctic Sea ice extent, August 10, 2008:


Link to graph: http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png


I find the image below fascinating (and it is the scariest of all):

Link to updated TLT channel temperature anomalies graph (NOTE: often due to volume of traffic it is not possible to access the link -- try again later):
http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#figures


And, below, find an animation of global surface temperature anomalies for the past 30 days -- most disturbing are the anomalies occurring at Antarctica many of which are much higher than 20 C.

Link to animation above: http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/fnl/sfctmpmer_01a_30frames.fnl.anim.html
ABOVE: image from August 4th, 2008.

BELOW, temperature map of the Arctic (first click on the link below the picture, then click on the yellow dots to see weather conditions -- some dots are inactive):

Link to map: http://www.athropolis.com/map2.htm


BELOW: graphic of ice thickness (http://seaice.bplaced.net/gfs.html):


BELOW: graphic of 2-meter height temperatures (http://seaice.bplaced.net/gfs.html):