NB. Provisional investigation, not rigorous.
Linear response model d/dt(Ice area)=k(T-T0)
Rate of melting is proportional to the deviation for the temperature with which it would be in thermal equilibrium.
The Laplace solution to this ODE is an exponential decay response function.
Using an iterative filter that represents this response on (inverted) ICOADS N. Atlantic extra-tropical SST data provides the result of applying the linear model with SST as the driver.
Arbitrary scaling is used to compare this to ice area anomaly. The temperature offset of 20.9 compares to regional average in the SST data of around 18.1 deg C since 2000.
Most of this difference will be because the SST data averages from 20N – 70N .
The decay constant of 8 years gives an estimation of the time it takes for the region to adapt to warmer conditions. The SST record has been fairly stable since 1998 and peaked in 2006.
This would imply that the ice cap is near to equilibrium with the current conditions.
(ICOADS v2.5 pulled form KNMI explorer)
