What a difference a year makes

One of those things I like to check to see wether things are going to get colder or not is the amount of cold air in Canada, the Arctic and Siberia. The amount of cold air is highly depended on the amount of snow cover and ice cover over the polar regions of the northern hemisphere. The reason we have had such an early cold snap including one of the coldest Novembers in about 10-15 years is the record growth of ice in the arctic compared to last year. I check the cryosphere every couple of days and check out the comparison from today to last year at this time.

Notice the amount of snow and ice cover but also the depth of the sea ice this year compared to last year. Large area that were open water last year are now covered in ice and at a much deeper level than last December.