2012-2018 What is the difference? Over all sea ice is thinner

~After all first melt was earliest in history
~Sea ice snow cover was thicker in many Arctic quadrants
~How to judge with perfect hindsight


   With respect to sea ice over all thinness,  we can recognize by how easy it breaks up during the melting season.  None better place than Lancaster Sound:

June 22 2012-13-14-15-16-17 and 2018,  we note with great interest 2012, the year with the greatest sea ice melt in history, with irony,  had the thickest sea ice in Lancaster sound,  sea ice which survived well beyond July:

   How does the greatest melt in history have the thickest most persistent sea ice here?   It simply was a matter of the gradual degradation of sea ice year by year...    Which is part and parcel with the ongoing thinning of sea ice process,  therefore since 2012,  the overall sea ice of a huge area of the Arctic has had less volume even with similar extent,  namely from two processes,  more surface snow and warmer temperatures.  At Lancaster Sound, the winter of 2018 had large positive temperature anomalies until mid February.

June 15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22.  Not long ago on June 15 2018,  sea ice in Lancaster appeared rock solid but was in fact very fragile, extent of roughly 50,000 km2 sea ice is currently in the process of disappearing in a matter of a few days.

   July 3 2012,  more sturdy and strong than 2018,  appeared very similar to 2018 June 15:

June 15 2018 looked solid, but undeniably thinner than 2012 which really broke up nearly a month later.:

Amazing irony to find sea ice so resilient during the year with greatest melt in history.  But Arctic sea ice loss of volume process never stopped since

     Hindsight being 20/20 we can study every location having rapidly disintegrating sea ice by surmising the strong possibility that it was even thinner than thought or measured. WD June 23, 2018