It’s the time of year when a lot of people start checking the status of Arctic ice cover, heading for the september minimum. Here’s what it looks like this week. Blue line is current level. Green dots are the record low 2007 pace. Too early to make predictions based on this, but something to keep in mind. For context, last year’s sea ice video below.
The rate of melting is increasing:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
As noted, the area covered by ice is not the only data point — the age and thickness of the ice is decreasing rapidly.
If the Greenland melts substantially, then that will affect the ocean’s level quite a bit.