Category Archives: News

Facts About the Arctic in May 2023

May 3, 2023NewsAMSR2, Anne Sledd, Area, Art of Melt 2023, AWI, CAA, Chaunskaya Bay, Chukchi Sea, Cloud Feedback, Coronation Gulf, Cyclone, Dempster Highway, Extent, Fires, Fort McPherson, Fram Strait, Greenland Sea, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea, Mackenzie River, MIZ, Oden, Peel River, Pevek, SMOS, Svalbard, TsiigehtchicJim Hunt

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:

Facts About the Arctic in April 2023

April 9, 2023NewsAge, Beaufort Sea, CAA, CryoSat-2, Extent, Greenland, NSIDC, PIOMAS, SMOS, ThicknessJim Hunt

Arctic sea ice extent in early April is singularly unexceptional. Here’s the AWI AMSR2 version:

Things start to become more interesting when looking at the third dimension. Here’s the PIOMAS gridded thickness map for March 31st:

Facts About the Arctic in March 2023

March 8, 2023NewsBBC, Colliford Lake, Cornwall, CryoSat-2, Desalination, Drought, Extent, FMI, Fram Strait, JAXA, Kirk England, PIOMAS, SMOS, Thickness, VolumeJim Hunt

We’ll come on to the Arctic in a moment, but at more temperate latitudes I am proud to announce that my Cornish alter ego has been officially outed as an “environmental campaigner” by the BBC. Moving pictures of yours truly, discussing drought rather than sea ice, are available via BBC iPlayer until around 18:30 this evening, possibly to UK residents only.

[Stop Press! A shorter version of Kirk England’s report on two potential desalination plants in Cornwall (also including my 15 seconds of fame!) is available here until around 22:30 this evening ]

Alternatively we have recorded our own moving pictures of this momentous event:

Yesterday we had a good look around #Colliford Lake, by far the largest reservoir in #Cornwall. Following last year's #drought it is currently still less than half full:https://t.co/pk71eN3NQJ

Our intro includes @kasiaturajczyk exploring the "beach"#Drought2023 in #Kernow? pic.twitter.com/3t3lFd6esD

— Davidstow Info 〓〓 (@DavidstowInfo) March 7, 2023

And an added still image as well:

The 2023 Maximum Arctic Sea Ice Extent

March 2, 2023NewsAWI, Extent, JAXA, NSIDC, Zack LabeJim Hunt

March has arrived, so it’s time to start taking a serious look at where and when the 2023 maximum Arctic sea ice extent will occur.

To start with here’s Zack Labe’s overview of previous years’ maxima:

Facts About the Arctic in February 2023

February 3, 2023NewsAMSR2, Area, ASIF, AWI, CryoSat-2, Cyclone, Extent, Fram Strait, JAXA, Maximum, Minimum, MSLP, NSIDC, PIOMAS, SMOS, Snow Cover, Thickness, VolumeJim Hunt

A new month has arrived, and during January several Arctic sea ice metrics have been drifting towards the bottom of their respective decadal ranges. To begin with here is AWI’s high resolution AMSR2 extent graph, which is currently very close to being lowest for the date in the AMSR2 record:

However that is less the case for area:

Taylor is keen to see the PIOMAS volume data for January, but whilst we wait for the latest Polar Science Center update here is the CryoSat-2/SMOS volume graph, which now includes a couple of month’s worth of reanalysed results as well as more recent near real time numbers:

Here too is the start of month CS2/SMOS thickness map:

Facts About the Arctic in January 2023

January 4, 2023NewsAMSR2, Area, CAB, CryoSat-2, DMI, Extent, Fram Strait, Nares Strait, PIOMAS, SMOS, Thickness, VolumeJim Hunt

At the beginning of the New Year all the central regions of the Arctic are now refrozen apart from a small area of the Kara Sea:

Most Arctic sea ice metrics are near the middle of their respective ranges over the last decade. By way of example, here is a graph of Arctic Freezing Degree Days based on the Danish Meteorological Institute’s temperature data for the area north of 80 degrees latitude:

Facts About the Arctic in December 2022

December 2, 2022NewsAMSR2, Area, AWI, Barents Sea, Concentration, CryoSat-2, Extent, Kara Sea, NOAA, PIOMAS, SMOS, Thickness, WavesJim Hunt

A new month is upon us and Christmas is coming! Here’s another look at Lars Kaleschke’s high resolution AMSR2 area and extent graphs for the Arctic as a whole:

Extent increase stalled for the last few days of November, and as a result extent is now in a “statistical tie” with 2017 for 4th lowest extent for the date in the AMSR2 record.

Facts About the Arctic in November 2022

November 1, 2022NewsAMSR2, Arctic Circumpolar Boundary Current, Area, AWI, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, Extent, Lars Kaleschke, MSLP, NSIDC, SMOS, Temperature, ThicknessJim Hunt

A change is allegedly as good as a rest, so here’s an alternative view of high resolution AMSR2 area and extent created using the experimental tools provided by the AWI’s Lars Kaleschke at: https://sites.google.com/view/sea-ice/

After a brief pause mid-month the refreeze has accelerated again. Both metrics are in the upper half of the decadal range, with extent this year just above 2021 and area just below last year.

Next let’s take a look at sea ice concentration at the end of October:

The Primacy of Doubt

October 20, 2022NewsAlbedo Feedback, Climate Change, Cloud Feedback, Die Zeit, Judith Curry, Luke Kemp, Matthew Burgess, MPI-M, Nic Lewis, PIK, Richard Feynman, Roger Pielke Jr., Syukuro Manabe, Tim Ball, Tim Palmer, Water Vapour Feedback, WeatherJim Hunt

Recently Judith Curry published a series of articles on the topic of blackouts. Since attempting to prevent such things is my “professional” speciality I’ve spent a bit of time over at “Climate Etc.” recently. Hence I couldn’t help but notice Judith’s article on Tim Palmer‘s new book, entitled “The Primacy of Doubt”. According to Judith:

Facts About the Arctic in October 2022

October 2, 2022NewsAdvection, AMSR2, Area, AWI, CMC, Concentration, CryoSat-2, Cyclone, Extent, GFS Wave, MSLP, PIOMAS, SMOS, Thickness, Volume, WavesJim Hunt

The 2022/23 freezing season has begun, so to begin with here are Arctic sea ice area and extent during its early stages:

Both metrics are currently tracking 2021 quite closely.

Here too is an AMSR2 animation of the transition from melting to freezing in the Central Arctic. Click to animate, and be warned that the file size is almost 10 Mb:

[Edit – October 4th]

Another big storm is heading for the Chukchi Sea. The GFS forecast currently shows a sub 960 hPa low developing on Thursday:

The Great White Con

Putting the Arctic sea ice record straight