A Little Coincidence…

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a potential early start point for the end of Arctic sea ice build in the current northern Winter/Spring season. See post. Well, now it seems beyond doubt that this year marks the earliest recorded end of ice-building in the Arctic. Is that meaningful? I don’t know. That is for future analysis to establish. But it is significant enough to be noted.

Do you love coincidences? I do. I’m looking for them all the time, as markers or indicators or potentialities of something that may be significant. Often they turn out not to be so, but sometimes they do. In any case the effort and the alertness required to observe them is never wasted.

Let me tell you of a little coincidence which, taken together with the point noted earlier, may doubly signify this year as perhaps being one of special significance. I’m not saying it will be that. It may also turn out to be an as ‘ordinary’ year for climate as 2021 was. Not that any year nowadays is climatically ‘ordinary’. The climate is changing markedly when viewed as ten year averaged (decadal) movement – as I have also expressed a number of times.

So, if we take the two most severely affected years of the past decade for maximum Summer ice melt, we may be able to determine a point in time from which their data indicated they were to be exceptional years within that decade. The two years in question are 2016 and 2020, with 2020 threatening to reach, but not quite making, the all-time ice melt record year of 2012. It happens to be that there is such a point at which their data lines coincide early in the year. There are other points of convergence but this one is significant in that it occurs at a point where we can say that this date is the start of the ice-melt season for both years. And that date is March 26. This is a first point of coincidence.

Then if we add in the data for the current year, 2022, we see not just a two-way coincidence but the data line for 2022 also joins the other two most significant years of the decade on March 26. A three-way coincidence. And since March 26 is as far as is currently plotted for the current year, this is clearly seen in the chart below. I have included the 2012 plot (red dashed line) also for comparison – even though it is no longer included in the current decade (last 10 years).

I am fully aware that this may not prove to be significant in any other way than marking a possible common start point for ice melt for these three years out of the last six. A point at which this year has exactly the same amount of ice cover to work on as the two most significant recent years of ice melt. It at least allows us to watch and compare what happens from here to mid-September, with interest. And it doesn’t matter that the three lines go in different directions from here – which merely illustrates the vagaries of the effects of Arctic weather.

Isn’t that what a coincidence is all about? I had not thought to look for such a thing before, and perhaps there has never been such an incident. You realise, I hope, how privileged we are to be able right now to view and recognise and contemplate matters like this. We should make the most of such passive capabilities – for the betterment of mankind – while we can. While not resorting to ‘active’ capabilities such as geo-engineering in a vain attempt to circumvent catastrophe – which would only serve to hasten our potential doom. Better to use what energies we have, to make preparation for our altered future existence.