By Anthony Watts, Watts Up With That

The April 1st National Snow and Ice Data Center Arctic Sea Ice Extent plot continues its unusual upwards trend and is almost intersecting the “normal” line. Given the slope of the current trend it seems highly likely it will intersect the normal line with the April 2nd plot.

click here for a larger image

Other sea ice metrics such as JAXA, using a different satellite platform (AQUA) and the AMSR-E sensor agree.

click here for larger image

It is an odd sort of a divergence, this growth of Arctic Sea ice well past the normal start of “melt”.

As first mentioned in a WUWT story two days ago, Dr. Walt Meier of NSIDC says:

“It’s a good question about the last time we’ve been above average. It was May 2001.”

It may be winds pushing ice further southwards in the Bering Sea, it may be fresh ice. It may be a combination. While this event isn’t by itself an about-face of the longer downward trend we’ve seen, it does seem to suggest that predictions assuming a linear (or even spiral) demise aren’t holding up.

We live in interesting times. See post here.