At the beginning of May AWI’s high resolution AMSR2 extent metric is at the top of the historical range:

After a period of melt in the East Greenland Sea, export of sea ice from the Central Arctic via the Fram Strait has increased recently:

Sea ice area in the Barents Sea peaked in the first week of April and has declined steadily since then:

SMOS data is flowing again, and the gaps have been filled. Here’s the final pre melt ponding map of the spring:

It reveals large areas of thin ice that have recently developed in the Kara Sea. Here’s a pseudo colour glimpse of the region through the clouds: