The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.
By happenstance, I was looking at the Arctic daily ice webpage that lets you compare the ice extents for any two days from 1979 until now:
Unfortunately, the 1980 graphic doesn’t show snowfall and the starburst image prominant near the center represents “old ice”, a major part of the GW argument.
Your date does show a very rapid growth this year compared to last by about 2.75 weeks as I have been tracking it the past month.
GW will have to be put on ice this year in the Artic, at this rate.