For those of you unfamiliar with the names of the assorted islands and channels of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago here is a map that hopefully helps:
Plus another map detailing the routes through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago that have previously been successfully navigated by vessels large and small:
The sea ice in Lancaster Sound and the Amundsen Gulf is breaking up, and melt ponds are now visible on the fast ice across much of the southern route through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago:
“False colour” image of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago on June 17th from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite
The melt ponds previously visible in the Coronation Gulf now appear to have drained:
“False colour” image of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago on June 3rd from the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite
Looking at 2 dimensional data to begin with, CAA sea ice area is currently in the middle of the AMSR2 era pack:
To get a better feel for what might happen during the coming summer season here too is the state of play in the third dimension, courtesy of the Alfred Wegener Institute’s last combined thickness data of the winter from the Cryosat-2, Sentinel 3 and SMOS satellites:
Let’s also take a look at the Canadian Ice Service‘s sea ice “stage of development” charts. Here’s the most recent one for the “Western Arctic”, from June 15th:
There is no old ice anywhere on the southern route, so the stage seems set for the Northwest Passage to open relatively early this summer, with a final “choke point” in the Larsen Sound/Franklin Strait region.
Note that there is a potential fly in the NWP ointment, a recurrence of last year’s winds that blew old ice in the Beaufort Sea close to shore in the Amundsen Gulf during the first half of August!
I mentioned the start of Ella Hibbert‘s long voyage in her yacht Yeva over on this year’s Northwest Passage thread. Ella and Yeva have now crossed north of the Arctic Circle near Iceland and have begun their attempt to circumnavigate the Arctic in a single summer by sailing past the north of Iceland in a westerly direction:
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.
Earlier today the National Snow and Ice Data Center announced that:
On September 11, Arctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent of 4.28 million square kilometers (1.65 million square miles). The 2024 minimum is the seventh lowest in the nearly 46-year satellite record. The last 18 years, from 2007 to 2024, are the lowest 18 sea ice extents in the satellite record…
Note that this is a preliminary announcement. Changing winds or late-season melt could still reduce the Arctic ice extent, as happened in 2005 and 2010. NSIDC scientists will release a full analysis of the Arctic melt season, and discuss the Antarctic winter sea ice growth, in early October.
Consequently several of the usual cryodenialospheric suspects have been frantically spinning their webs of deceit around the announcement.
First up was Javier Vinós, who beat the NSIDC’s starting gun by firing a broadside on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday. If you’re unfamiliar with the name, Javier frequently pontificates about Arctic sea ice, amongst other things, on Judith Curry’s “Climate Etc.” blog. He confidently announced that:
Arctic sea ice reaches its annual minimum with an extent greater than in 2007, 2012, 2016, 2019, 2020 and 2023.
The two warmest years in a row at > +1.5°C have ZERO IMPACT on the 17-year resilience of Arctic sea ice.
Needless to say, “Snow White” felt compelled to quibble:
David Scott Cowper is 82, and his first solo voyage through the Northwest Passage, in the converted lifeboat Mabel E. Holland, began in the Davis Strait in 1986. After spending 3 winters north of the Arctic Circle, Mabel eventually travelled south through the Bering Strait in 1989:
David’s second solo voyage through the Northwest Passage took place from east to west starting in 2003. His purpose built motor vessel, Polar Bound, spent the winter in Cambridge Bay and completed the voyage in the summer of 2004:
For this summer’s east to west voyage David is travelling in Polar Bound once again, this time accompanied by Susannah Broome. They have crossed the North Atlantic from Newcastle and have recently departed from Qaqortoq in the south west of Greenland:
Some “pleasure craft” are currently heading up the west coast of Greenland en route to the Bering Strait via Lancaster Sound and one of the assorted routes through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. For those of you unfamiliar with the geography of the Northwest Passage, here are couple of hopefully helpful maps:
Whilst there is still ice blocking the route across Baffin Bay from Greenland, the Canadian Ice Service has already started daily coverage of the heart of the southern route through the Northwest Passage. There’s plenty of open water in Lancaster Sound and low concentration sea ice in Prince Regent Inlet:
Further south there is also open water in the Coronation Gulf, but the fast ice between Peel Sound and King William Island has not yet started breaking up:
This slightly cloudy satellite image of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago also shows that the exit of the northern route via McClure Strait into the Beaufort Sea is already navigable:
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:
This satellite record tracks long-term trends, variability, and seasonal changes from the annual extent maximum in late February or March and the annual extent minimum in September. Extents in recent years are ~50% lower than values in the 1980s. In 2023, March and September extents were lower than other recent years, and though not a new record low, they continue the long-term downward trends:
March 2023 was marked by low sea ice extent around most of the perimeter of the sea ice edge, with the exception of the East Greenland Sea where extent was near normal. At the beginning of the melt season, ice retreat was initially fairly slow through April. In May and June, retreat increased to a near-average rate, and then accelerated further through July and August. By mid-July, the ice had retreated from much of the Alaskan and eastern Siberian coast and Hudson Bay had nearly melted out completely. In August, sea ice retreat was particularly pronounced on the Pacific side, opening up vast areas of the Beaufort, Chukchi, and East Siberian Seas. Summer extent remained closer to average on the Atlantic side, in the Laptev, Kara, and Barents Seas
The Northern Sea Route, along the northern Russian coast, was relatively slow to open as sea ice extended to the coast in the eastern Kara Sea and the East Siberian Sea, but by late August, open water was found along the coast through the entire route. The Northwest Passage through the Canadian Archipelago became relatively clear of ice, though ice continued to largely block the western end of the northern route through M’Clure Strait through the melt season. Nonetheless, summer 2023 extent in the Passage was among the lowest observed in the satellite record, based on Canadian Ice Service ice charts.
Tracking the motion of ice in passive microwave imagery using feature tracking algorithms can be used to infer sea ice age. Age is a proxy for ice thickness because multiyear ice generally grows thicker through successive winter periods. Multiyear ice extent has shown interannual oscillations but no clear trend since 2007, reflecting variability in the summer sea ice melt and export out of the Arctic. After a year when substantial multiyear ice is lost, a much larger area of first-year ice generally takes its place. Some of this first-year ice can persist through the following summer, contributing to the replenishment of the multiyear ice extent:
However, old ice (here defined as >4 years old) has remained consistently low since 2012. Thus, unlike in earlier decades, multiyear ice does not remain in the Arctic for many years. At the end of the summer 2023 melt season, multiyear ice extent was similar to 2022 values, far below multiyear extents in the 1980s and 1990s:
Estimates of sea ice thickness from satellite altimetry can be used to more directly track this important metric of sea ice conditions, although the data record is shorter than for extent and ice age. Data from ICESat-2 and CryoSat-2/SMOS satellite products tracking the seasonal October to April winter ice growth over the past four years (when all missions have been in operation) show a mean thickness generally thinner than the 2021/22 winter but with seasonal growth typical of recent winters:
April 2023 thickness from CryoSat-2/SMOS relative to the 2011-22 April mean shows that the eastern Beaufort Sea and the East Siberian Sea had relatively thinner sea ice than the 2011-22 mean, particularly near the Canadian Archipelago. Thickness was higher than average in much of the Laptev and Kara Seas and along the west and northwest coast of Alaska, extending northward toward the pole. The East Greenland Sea had a mixture of thicker and thinner than average ice:
An excellent analysis (IMHO!), but I do have one quibble. I was following events in the Northwest Passage very closely last summer, and according to the Canadian Ice Service on September 1st:
Prompted by a comment by Tom in the June open thread, the time has evidently come to open the 2023 Northwest Passage passage thread. First of all let’s 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:
As our starter for ten for 2023, there is already plenty of open water in the Amundsen Gulf, together with plenty of melt ponding on the remaining fast ice in Franklin and Darnley Bays:
As in previous years there is already a thread devoted to this year’s minimum extent. By way of a summary here are the end of August numbers for our favourite “high resolution” AMSR2 area and extent metrics:
Extent is currently near the top of the range of the last 10 years.
We have now reached the stage of the “melting season” when “refreezing” has started in the Central Arctic but melting at the periphery is outpacing it. However the Canadian Ice Service stage of development charts now show the arrival of new ice in the high latitudes of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago:
After a quiet couple of years due to the Covid-19 pandemic there are numerous cruises through the Northwest Passage planned for the summer of 2022. Some (very!) small vessels are also currently scheduled to attempt that perilous journey. First of all let’s take a look at a map of the assorted routes through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago:
plus another map which includes a few more place names:
Next comes news of the expeditions planned by a variety of intrepid adventurers. According to Karl Kruger’s web site :
In 2022, Karl will attempt to become the first human to paddle 1,900 miles of the Northwest Passage on a standup paddleboard.
The article at the link is undated, but suggests that Karl initially intended to set off for Pond Inlet from Tuktoyaktuk in July 2019, but postponed the trip until the summer of 2020. By then Covid restrictions were in place, so next month provides the first opportunity for him to attempt the journey once again.
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