This isn’t exactly “shock news”, since we (slightly hesitantly!) predicted this 5 days ago.

A GFS 2 meter temperature chart revealing greater than zero degrees Celsius at the North Pole later today:

The 2 meter temperature anomaly at the Pole is almost off the charts:

Plus the cause of these unusual numbers, a cyclone with central pressure of 959 hPa spinning north of Ellesmere Island at 18:00 UTC this evening:

All of which has led to the JAXA/Vishop Arctic sea ice extent being the lowest for the date since 1979 at least by a significant margin:

[Update – February 3rd]

Thanks to a heads up from @Joackiie on BlueSky, I have just learned that the data from snow buoy 300534066617750 confirms that the atmospheric temperature at the North Pole did briefly become positive yesterday.

Pressure dropped below 975 hPa:

[Update – February 4th

Here’s a close up of the Wavewatch III model’s predicted wave size for noon on February 2nd, centred on Svalbard:

Here too are earth.nullschool‘s maps of temperature:

and wind wave significant height near Svalbard for the same date and time:

[Update – February 5th

Here is the February 5th 0Z Wavewatch III surf forecast for 6Z:

Has anybody ever previously surfed the north shore of Spitsbergen in the dark?

Do Red Bull UK have access to choppers with searchlights?

I called the Great White Con Arctic basin big wave surfing team leader Andrew Cotton to give him the heads up, but he didn’t pick up. Perhaps he’s en route to the far north even as we speak?

[Update – February 6th]

Currently both pan Arctic and Central Arctic Basin sea ice extent are lowest for the date in the AMSR2 record:

Given the “surf forecast” above it probably won’t come as a surprise to discover that the OSI-SAF’s Svalbard sea ice area metric is also currently at a record low level. The same applies to extent in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Barents Sea:

[Update – February 8th

The January 2025 PIOMAS gridded thickness data has been released:

By January 31st Arctic sea ice volume had increased to 17.11 thousand km³, still 2nd lowest for the date in the PIOMAS record:

For comparison purposes, here is the “near real time” CryoSat-2/SMOS merged thickness data from the Alfred Wegener Institute: 

Together with the associated volume graph:

[Update – February 11th

At long last Arctic sea ice extent is starting to recover:

[Update – February 14th]

JAXA/ViSHOP extent has reached a new high of 13.10 million km² for the year:

[Update – February 21st]

Another warm air incursion into the Arctic Basin has begun. The GFS 2 meter temperature chart shows temperatures reaching zero degrees Celsius and above in the Fram Strait and northern Barents Sea tomorrow evening:

Temperatures anomalies are over 20 degrees Celsius between Greenland and Svalbard:

A procession of low pressure areas are feeding warmth and moisture from the North Atlantic through the Norwegian Sea and into the Central Arctic:

To be continued…