Arctic Sea Ice Volume at record low.

It likely qualifies as it's from the major site.

This will certainly set a record for a drop as it was u usually high late in the year.
Still - it's not much of an indicator...multiyear is more critical and even that is suspect now

Rotten’ multi-year ice
FEBRUARY 11, 2010
in CANADA, SCIENCE, THE ENVIRONMENT
Because of the tilt of the Earth, the polar regions will always be cold in the winter. What is changing in the Arctic is the amount of ice that can endure through the summer months. Ice that has survived two winters is said to be ‘multiyear’ ice. Because more salt has been forced out from it, it is harder than younger ice. That makes it more durable, as well as a greater hazard to ships. While the decline in the overall extent of Arctic sea ice has been dramatic, the decline in the extent of multiyear ice has been even more so. This animation shows it vanishing over the past 30 years.

Furthermore, at least some scientists believe that most of the melting taking place has been from the bottom, and anecdotal reports from people operating icebreaking ships suggest that the multiyear ice still out there isn’t the same thing as what existed before. It is riddled with brine channels and weaker, and sometimes just consists of a thin layer of young ice covering small chunks of old ice. As such, it is more vulnerable to melting. This weak and vulnerable ice can provide a false impression of strength, when viewed from space. David Barber, Canada’s Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, has explained to Parliament that “we are almost out of multiyear sea ice in the northern hemisphere.”
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This is a very good animated indicator as you can see the multi-year ice decline over the past 30 years.

http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/images/20070822_oldice.gif
 
Presumably you mean the anomaly is a record low, ice volume won’t hit it’s minimum until Sept or so.

I agree that we look to be headed for a new record volume this year when we hit the yearly minimum. I prefer to look at max and min, the timing of the transition in between can play such a large role in the number it can result in some very odd results.
 
a) black water is far more absorptive than white ice when solar hits. It's remarkably higher.

b) mechanical breakage is far higher which does not add energy the way a) does but promotes faster melting.
 
And ?

The post and image I was responding to was based on area ..

That's why I asked how that image ( area ) showed why volume was so low.

macdoc said ' because of more ( remarkably more ) black water...'

I said ' more than when ? ', because it's about the same as it was a year ago ..
 
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Open water has a lower albedo than ice. There was a lot of open water for this time of year in that image, greg. This will translate into dropping volume, as you can see it is in the graph I posted in the OP.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
And ?

The post and image I was responding to was based on area ..

That's why I asked how that image ( area ) showed why volume was so low.

macdoc said ' because of more ( remarkably more ) black water...'

I said ' more than when ? ', because it's about the same as it was a year ago ..
Click to expand...

Gotcha, I misunderstood.
 
NOT the way it says i the OP subject. NOT the "lowest ever".

Only the lowest in ummm... according the the graph, lowest in 30 years. That's darn near "weather", not 'climate'.
 
Remarkably higher ? Higher than when ?
Click to expand...

Black water has a remarkably higher heat gain than continuous surface ice.

There was one article showing a new pattern of stippling on the surface ice with pockets of water on top which would also pick up heat faster.

Really tho single year ice is of marginal value in assessment unless you happen to be planning shipping routes.
 
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