I’m opening the 2025 Northwest Passage thread earlier than usual, because of some news you can read if you scroll down. However, let’s first of all get our bearings with the help of this map of the area:
and another map detailing the routes through Canadian Arctic Archipelago that have previously been successfully traversed:
The news I was referring to is that at lunchtime today Ella Hibbert is setting off in her yacht Yeva from Haslar Marina near Portsmouth in southern England for a rather unusual voyage through the Northwest Passage this summer. Here is Ella’s current route plan:
You will note some unusual features. Apparently Ella is intent on taking Route 1 into the Beaufort Sea via McClure Strait. After that she is not heading for the Bering Strait, but is instead taking the route less travelled back to Haslar via the Northern Sea Route. Perhaps even more surprising in this day and age is that Ella has received permission to sail through Russian waters without an ice pilot. She is aiming to complete an entire circumnavigation of the Arctic in a single summer single handed! As Ella puts it, this is “A voyage that should not be possible”:
Ella is hoping to overcome terrifying challenges including icebergs, freezing water and polar bears.
Her journey – which has only recently become possible due to melting polar ice caps – aims to showcase the devastating environmental impact of sea ice decline, both in the Arctic and across the world.
Ella’s voyage also aims to support two charities working tirelessly to protect the Arctic: Polar Bears International and the Ocean Conservancy.
At the end of her voyage, Ella will auction her ship Yeva with proceeds to go to these two charities.
I frequently post a summary of the Arctic section of the United States’ National Snow and Ice Data Center’s monthly review of the current state of the cryosphere. Here is the most recent edition.
JAXA/ViSHOP extent is no longer “lowest for the date”! After “flatlining” for most of April the metric is now in the midst of a close knit group of the other years in the 2020s:
The high pressure area over the Central Arctic persisted through the second half of April, and so did the consequent drift of ice from the Pacific side of the Arctic to the Atlantic periphery:
AWI’s sea ice area for the Greenland Sea is currently “highest for the date” in the AMSR2 record that started in July 2012:
The offshore winds along the Laptev Sea coast have continued, and sea ice area is now “lowest for the date”:
The first signs of a break in the high pressure dominance are appearing. GFS currently forecasts that a low pressure area will enter the Central Arctic, bring above zero temperatures over the Kara Sea on Sunday:
The time has arrived to start taking a close look at the assorted different Arctic sea ice extent metrics, in order to ascertain their respective maxima for 2025. To begin with here’s Zack Labe’s overview of previous years’ maxima:
After spending several weeks in the unfortunate position of lowest for the date, JAXA/ViSHOP Arctic sea ice extent has just risen above 2015. By a mere 10,000 km²:
Despite the fact that JAXA extent is still rising, AWI extent has potentially already achieved its maximum value for 2025:
Somewhat belatedly, here is the PIOMAS sea ice thickness map for February 28th 2025:
At the end of February Arctic sea ice volume had increased to 19.32 thousand km³, still 2nd lowest for the date in the PIOMAS record:
AWI have also released a new version of their thickness product, incorporating additional data from the two Sentinel 3 satellites. The thickness data for February 28th, looks slightly different:
The New Year began with JAXA/ViSHOP extent lowest for the date in the satellite era, just below 2018 . Since then extent has reduced, and there is now a large gap:
The primary reason for this is the remaining open water in Hudson Bay:
In previous years Hudson Bay has been covered by sea ice by this time of year, but in 2025 a large area remains unfrozen in early January!
Due to the way PIOMAS handles the leap years the last gridded thickness data of 2024 is dated December 30th:
By December 30th Arctic sea ice volume had increased to 13.61 thousand km³, 2nd lowest for the date in the PIOMAS record:
Christmas is coming, and even as we speak Snow White is heading for the geographical North Pole to assist Santa’s little helpers in their annual gift delivery mission:
Santa at the North Pole in August 2016
We’ll start the festive season with a graph of JAXA/ViSHOP extent, which is in a “statistical tie” with 2020 for 2nd lowest for the date in the satellite era:
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