From Neven: Barentsz and Kara
The Barentsz Sea and its neighbour the Kara Sea are giving us an exciting prelude this year, as we await the melting season to start in about a month and a half from now. Large swathes of sea water that ought to be frozen by now, are still open or have opened up in the past fortnight.
According to the Norwegian Meteorological Institute this is what an average January (1976-2006) looked like in the region:
http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b016761d43b26970b-800wi
And this is how it looks now, one week into February:
I have been looking at the Arctic sea ice from up close for about two years now, but this is definitely one of the most spectacular things I have seen so far. Two weeks ago 2012 somewhat looked like 2006 and 2008 (although there already was more open water around Svalbard and Novaya Zemlya), but where the ice cover grew in those two years, it just keeps on getting smaller this year. It's almost as if the melting season has already started in the Barentsz and Kara Seas, two months earlier than normal.
http://neven1.typepad.com/blog/2012/02/barentsz-and-kara.html
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Unheard of. 
