Arctic Sea Ice

Arctic sea ice varies.

It's difficult to tell from one month to the next how things compare to previous years.

Sometimes it looks like this it indicates a much cooler Arctic year than in years past, and sometimes it looks otherwise.

But at the moment, here's how 2009 sea ice extent compares to the last two years:

(Click to enlarge.) ((That sounds vaguely sexual, doesn't it?))

This year just dipped below last year in extent. And while it was significantly behind 2007's record low of last year (over 5% more ice, as of a month and a half ago), this year now lags 2007 by just 1%.

It's hard to draw any conclusions except in an average sense. But that's kind of boring, blog-wise.

data source: IARC-JAXA