There was a lot of controversy leading up to this moment, as we covered previously on WUWT where NSIDC put a new trailing average algorithm online with no notice, and bungled the climatology in the process, needing a fix. As has been the case before when NSIDC data goes wonky it was those bloggers of “breathtaking ignorance” who spotted the issue before NSIDC did and brought it to their attention.

Here’s today’s graph: (NSIDC publishes a day behind)

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

Now, it should be pointed out that it hasn’t crossed the normal line, and it only touches it because of the line width, it is still ever so slightly below normal according to Cryosphere Today.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png

I noted yesterday that the difference was -0.070, so it has nudged away from the normal line a bit. This is supported by the NORSEX data, enlarged here:

http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png

Clearly though, by the NORSEX data, Artic Sea Ice was briefly above the 1979-2006 monthly average, but is now headed back down. NSIDC’s trailing average will filter out this short above normal excursion, and I predict that it will turn slightly away from the normal line tomorrow or the next day.

Overall though, we have a pretty full north polar ice cap, especially in the Bering Sea, which has seen record high extents this year. This is encouraging:

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_bm_extent_hires.png

All of this bears watching at the WUWT Sea Ice Reference Page but we’ll soon be into the ho-hum period when all of the years data converge on the way to the minimum sometime in September. While we have near normal extent now, that doesn’t always translate into near normal minimums.