Category Archives: News

The North Pole in the Summer of 2022

July 25, 2022News50 Let Pobedy, AMSR2, AWI, Concentration, IMB Buoys, Kronprins Haakon, Le Commandant Charcot, Marcel Nicolaus, North Pole, Ole Arve Misund, Snow Buoys, ThicknessJim Hunt

After a long hiatus courtesy of the demise of the annual Barneo ice camp and the Covid-19 pandemic we are pleased to be able to report that an ice mass balance buoy has once again been installed on a floe in the vicinity of the North Pole. Here’s the evidence:

The ship in the background is not a traditional research icebreaker. It is Ponant Cruises’ Le Commandant Charcot, one of a number of new ice hardened cruise ships voyaging across the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas. Le Commandant Charcot reached 90N on July 13th:

Polarstern in the Svalbard Marginal Ice Zone

July 4, 2022News79N Glacier, AIS, AWI, Bremen Uni, CTD, IMB Buoys, Marine Traffic, MIZ, Polarstern, Salinity, Svalbard, Torsten Kanzow, Zachariæ IsstrømJim Hunt

In a press release last week the Alfred Wegener Institute announced that:

From her home port in Bremerhaven, the Polarstern will set course for Fram Strait and the marginal ice zone north of Svalbard, where warm, nutrient-rich Atlantic Water flows into the Arctic Ocean.

Facts About the Arctic in July 2022

July 1, 2022News50 Let Pobedy, Age, AMSR2, ASIF, Barents Sea, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, Extent, IMB Buoys, La Niña, Le Commandant Charcot, Lincoln Sea, North Pole, NSIDC, PIOMAS, Thickness, Utqiaġvik, VolumeJim Hunt

After a relatively rapid decline at the beginning of June Arctic sea extent is now very close to the 2010s average:

Both 2020 and 2021 began relatively rapid declines of their own at the beginning of July, so it will be interesting to see if 2022 follows suit.

Most of the fast ice off Utqiaġvik has recently disappeared:

Meanwhile further out into the Chukchi Sea the sea ice looks to be in poor shape at the moment, with surface melting apparent across the entire region:

The Northern Sea Route in 2022

June 22, 2022NewsAARI, AMSR2, Bering Strait, Boris Davydov, Chaunskaya Bay, Chukchi Sea, Eduard Toll, ESS, Georgiy Brusilov, Ice Eagle, Laptev Sea, LNG, MODIS, Nikolay Yevgenov, NSR, NSRA, Pevek, Rudolf Samoylovich, Sevmorput, Sibir, Vilkitsky StraitJim Hunt

On June 17th the Northern Sea Route Administration published the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute forecast of ice conditions for June to August 2022. Here’s the summary:

“Favorable” conditions in most areas, but “average” in the eastern East Siberian Sea and south west Chukchi Sea.

Traffic along the main Northern Sea Route has already begun. Marine Traffic reveals that the liquified natural gas carrier Nikolay Yevgenov is heading for the Bering Strait and has already sailed north of the New Siberian Islands. He is now entering the “average” ice area in the eastern ESS:

Meanwhile the recently commissioned nuclear powered icebreaker Sibir is patiently waiting in the Vilkitsky Strait:

The Northern Sea Route is evidently already “open” for ice hardened LNG tankers, but not yet for more conventional vessels. Here is the current AMSR2 sea ice concentration map:

Facts About the Arctic in June 2022

June 3, 2022NewsAMSR2, AWI, Axel Heiberg Island, CMC, Compaction, Extent, GEM, Laptev Sea, Lena RiverJim Hunt

May 2022 proved to be fairly uneventful in the Arctic. High resolution AMSR2 Arctic sea ice extent has remained towards the top of the recent pack:

However Arctic sea ice area has been declining more quickly recently, and compaction is now lowest for the date in the AMSR2 record:

Facts About the Arctic in May 2022

April 30, 2022NewsAge, AMSR2, Area, Beaufort Sea, Bering Sea, Chaunskaya Bay, David Barber, East Siberian Sea, Extent, IMB Buoys, MSLP, Pevek, Sea Of Okhotsk, Snow Cover, Temperature, ThicknessJim Hunt

By way of a change we’ll start the month of May with a closer look at one of the ice mass balance buoys deployed in the Beaufort Sea last Autumn. IMB buoy 569620 was deployed at 78.5 N, 147.0 W on September 3rd 2021, and since then it has drifted to 81.0 N, 147.7 W. Here is the buoy’s record of atmospheric conditions above the ice floe it’s embedded in since then:

Facts About the Arctic in April 2022

April 8, 2022NewsAWI, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, CryoSat-2, Extent, Mackenzie River, MSLP, NSIDC, PIOMAS, SMOS, Snow Cover, Temperature, Thickness, VolumeJim Hunt

The April edition of the NSIDC’s Arctic Sea Ice News summarises March 2022 as follows:

Average Arctic sea ice extent for March 2022 was 14.59 million square kilometers (5.63 million square miles), ranking ninth lowest in the satellite record…

Exercise Cold Response 2022

March 7, 2022NewsCold Response 2022, HMS Prince of Wales, Mike Utley, NATO, Norway, Portsmouth, Ukraine WarJim Hunt

In a press release earlier today the Royal Navy announced that:

The UK’s largest warship has left Portsmouth to lead a NATO task force to the Arctic for the biggest exercises in Norway for 30 years.

Facts About the Arctic in March 2022

March 7, 2022NewsAMSR2, Antarctic, AWI, Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea, Concentration, CryoSat-2, Extent, Fram Strait, HALO-(AC)³, JAXA, North Pole, SMOS, Temperature, Thickness, VolumeJim Hunt

For detailed analysis of Arctic sea ice extent over the next few weeks please see the 2022 maximum extent thread. However to get the new open thread going here is the current JAXA/ViSHOP extent graph:

It’s looking more and more as though the real maximum for 2022 occurred close the false peak on February 23rd.

Arctic sea ice volume will keep increasing for a while longer. Here is the current AWI CryoSat-2/SMOS volume graph:

The recent “flat line” in extent is in part due to recent events on the Pacific periphery of the Arctic. Take a look at this animation of AMSR2 sea ice concentration:

The gap varies depending on how the wind blows, but there is still evidence of open water (or very thin ice) along the shore of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Here’s the Mackenzie Delta and the adjacent Beaufort Sea on March 5th:

Facts About the Arctic in February 2022

February 5, 2022NewsAMSR2, Audax, AWI, CryoSat-2, FMI, Fram Strait, NSR, PIOMAS, Sabetta, SMOS, Vladimir VizeJim Hunt

Following the “Great Arctic Winter Cyclone” towards the end of January, here are the latest high resolution AMSR2 area and extent graphs:

The sudden reduction in sea ice area due to the cyclone is very apparent, as is the subsequent refreeze of the affected area. Here’s an animation of AMSR2 concentration revealing more detail:

Here too is the latest AWI CryoSat-2/SMOS Arctic sea ice volume graph:

It doesn’t reveal a similar “blip” towards the end of January, suggesting that reduction in area was due to compaction rather than melt. The current AWI thickness map shows the freshly formed ice north east of Svalbard is still very thin:

The latest thickness anomaly map from the Finnish Meteorological Institute shows that the ice which was exported from the Central Arctic via the Fram Strait is nevertheless still anomalously thin, although there is now an area of thicker ice north of Greenland:

The Great White Con

Putting the Arctic sea ice record straight