Category Archives: News

Facts About the Arctic in March 2024

March 2, 2024NewsAMSR2, AWI, Concentration, CryoSat-2, ESA, Extent, Greenland Sea, JAXA, Lars Kaleschke, Ron Clutz, Rutgers, Sea Of Okhotsk, SMOS, Snow Cover, Tony HellerJim Hunt

It looks as though the 2024 Arctic sea ice melting season has begun. For much greater detail see the 2024 maximum extent thread. However, here’s the latest JAXA Arctic sea ice extent graph:

Here too is an animation of sea ice motion on the Atlantic periphery, showing the effect of the passage of several Arctic cyclones through the area over the past 5 weeks or so:

[Update – March 4th]

My usual start of month processing hasn’t gone according to plan. Thanks to Lars Kaleschke at the Alfred Wegener Institute for the following information:

SMOS went into safe mode on 22 February 2024 at 05:10 UTC for reasons that are still under investigation.

The spacecraft has been back in nominal mode since 25 February 2024 and on 27 February 2024, the MIRAS instrument was switched on and is currently performing well.

The reload of the nominal acquisition planning is underway, and if all science data quality checks are positive, nominal data production and dissemination will resume in the coming days.

Facts About the Arctic in February 2024

February 2, 2024NewsAMSR2, Area, AWI, Barents Sea, Bering Sea, CAA, Cyclone, Extent, Fram Strait, GFS, JAXA, MODIS, MSLP, NSIDC, Odden Ice Tongue, PIOMAS, Ron Clutz, Snow Cover, Storm Ingunn, Temperature, Terra, Thickness, Vilkitsky Strait, Volume, WavesJim Hunt

A change is perhaps even better than a rest? Let’s start February with a reminder that following close behind another recent Arctic cyclone, Storm Ingunn caused red weather warnings for high winds and avalanches in Norway two days ago:

By yesterday evening another long period, storm driven swell was arriving at the sea ice edge in the Fram Strait, and to a lesser extent in the Barents Sea:

By this morning Ingunn had merged with the remnants of the prior cyclone, as revealed in Climate Reanalyzer’s visualisation of the latest GFS model run::

The 2023 Arctic Report Card

January 10, 2024NewsAge, CAA, CIS, CryoSat-2, Extent, ICESat-2, McClure Strait, NOAA, NSR, NWP, SMOS, ThicknessJim Hunt

The 2023 Arctic Report Card has been published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). All sorts of things are discussed in the report, but sticking to Snow White’s speciality of sea ice here’s an extract:

Facts About the Arctic in January 2024

January 1, 2024NewsAge, ASIF, CryoSat-2, ECCC, Ellesmere Island, Extent, Greenland, JAXA, Nares Strait, NOAA, NSIDC, OSI SAF, PIOMAS, Sentinel, SMOS, Snow Cover, Snow Water Equivalent, Thickness, VolumeJim Hunt

Happy New Year to one and all.

Whilst waiting for the all important thickness and volume data to arrive, we’ll start the new year in traditional fashion with a graph of JAXA extent:

Facts About the Arctic in December 2023

December 19, 2023NewsAMSR2, Atmospheric Rivers, AWI, CryoSat-2, Extent, JAXA, NSIDC, PIOMAS, Santa Claus, SMOS, Thickness, VolumeJim Hunt

Christmas is rapidly approaching, and Santa and Snow White send festive greetings to one and all from the North Pole:

JAXA extent currently seems to be stuck on December 17th, but here’s how it looked a couple of days ago:

Facts About the Arctic in September 2023

September 1, 2023NewsCMC, Cyclone, Extent, JAXA, MSLP, NSIDC, SIPNJim Hunt

There’s lots of coverage specifically about assorted Arctic sea ice extent metrics over on the “2023 Minimum Extent” thread. However we’ll start the September open thread ball rolling with a couple of cross posted images.

At the end of August JAXA daily extent was 7th lowest for the date, at 4.49 million km² :

The median prediction of the contributors to the August call by the Sea Ice Prediction Network for the September monthly average extent is 4.6 million km² :

The 2023 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Extent

August 22, 2023NewsAMSR2, Antarctic, AWI, Extent, JAXA, NASA, NSIDC, OSI SAF, Signe Aaboe, SIPN, Tony Heller, Zack LabeJim Hunt

It’s that time of year again! Tony Heller has been asserting that “summer is over at the North Pole” for several weeks now, and the 2023 Arctic sea ice minimum extent will occur at some point over the next four or five weeks. The exact date and level will almost certainly vary from one extent metric to the next.

To get the minimum extent ball rolling, here’s Signe Aaboe’s graph of previous summer minima based on OSI SAF data:

Here too is Zack Labe’s equivalent, based on JAXA data:

Facts About the Arctic in August 2023

July 31, 2023NewsAMSR2, Area, CryoSat-2, ESS, Extent, Greenland, Jack Landy, Minimum, PIOMAS, SIPN, VolumeJim Hunt

We have grandchildren visiting this week, so it seems prudent to get the new open thread started a day early, and before they wake up!

The ARCUS Sea Ice Prediction Network July report has recently been published. Here’s the graphic overview of the 30 predictions for September sea ice monthly average extent:

The July median forecasted value for pan-Arctic September sea-ice extent is 4.66 million square kilometers with interquartile values of 4.51 and 4.87 million square kilometers, while individual forecasts range from 3.12 and 5.30 million square kilometers. We note the lowest forecast is an outlier, and the only forecast that predicts a new record September sea-ice extent value (current record is September 2012, with a sea-ice extent of 3.57 million square kilometers).

Facts About the Arctic in July 2023

July 15, 2023NewsArea, AWI, Extent, SIPNJim Hunt

After briefly being near the bottom of the historical range at the beginning of the month, AWI’s high resolution AMSR2 area metric is now back near the top of that range:

However, although it’s not visible on the area graph extent has recently taken a bit of a tumble:

Here’s an animation showing the motion of sea ice in the Arctic over the last month:

The Northern Sea Route in 2023

June 14, 2023NewsBering Strait, East Siberian Sea, Fedor Litke, NSR, SibirJim Hunt

Data from the Northern Sea Route General Administration web site about the current positions of ships voyaging along the Northern Sea Route reveal that the liquified natural gas carrier Fedor Litke is currently following the icebreaker Sibir through the East Siberian Sea, heading for the Bering Strait:

The Great White Con

Putting the Arctic sea ice record straight