extremes
NSIDC has (preliminarily) announced the new record low ice extent for 2012.
On September 16, 2012 sea ice extent dropped to 3.41 million square kilometers (1.32 million square miles). This appears to have been the lowest extent of the year. In response to the setting sun and falling temperatures, ice extent will now climb through autumn and winter. However, a shift in wind patterns or a period of late season melt could still push the ice extent lower. The minimum extent was reached three days later than the 1979 to 2000 average minimum date of September 13.
This year’s minimum was 760,000…
So as I warned about some weeks ago, almost all of the record lows are already broken in the arctic sea ice front. Neven seems to have the best discussions going, but he is on holiday for the next couple of weeks. You can see almost all (all?) of the scientific surveys of the various ice metrics in this single page jam packed with graphs here. It's a fantastic resource with links to all the original data sources. I found it at Neven's, not sure if he created it but many thanks are owed to whomever it was.
And we still have as much as 4 weeks of likely declines remaining! A truly stunning…