Arctic Sea Ice

[so_whats_happening]

Rather extensive sea ice area weakening along the Atlantic front, had a system in the Barrents sea down to about 937mb at one point. Atleast it didn't push closet to the north pole than it was would have seen some really intense losses take place. These +NAO patterns don't seem all too great for sea ice conditions along the Atlantic front, Pacific side on the other hand faired ok. Latest sea ice thickness map with a 7 day forecast.

If we can close out the season with a solid 1.8-2.2m thickness across much of the Beaufort we may be able to spare a ridiculous season.

[so_whats_happening]

Just now, so_whats_happening said:

Rather extensive sea ice area weakening along the Atlantic front, had a system in the Barrents sea down to about 937mb at one point. Atleast it didn't push closet to the north pole than it was would have seen some really intense losses take place. These +NAO patterns don't seem all too great for sea ice conditions along the Atlantic front, Pacific side on the other hand faired ok. Latest sea ice thickness map with a 7 day forecast.

If we can close out the season with a solid 1.8-2.2m thickness across much of the Beaufort we may be able to spare a ridiculous season.

This was a snapshot of last year at around this time. Hopefully the CAA doesn't get blasted with warmth like it was from spring to fall (even some of winter was rough up there).

[MaineJay]

On 2/4/2024 at 6:35 PM, so_whats_happening said:

Rather extensive sea ice area weakening along the Atlantic front, had a system in the Barrents sea down to about 937mb at one point. Atleast it didn't push closet to the north pole than it was would have seen some really intense losses take place. These +NAO patterns don't seem all too great for sea ice conditions along the Atlantic front, Pacific side on the other hand faired ok. Latest sea ice thickness map with a 7 day forecast.

If we can close out the season with a solid 1.8-2.2m thickness across much of the Beaufort we may be able to spare a ridiculous season.

Open water up to about 83°N.  Extent number should go up as that north Kara sea I've is dispersed, but sunbelt looks weak here. 

Also saw that area numbers tumbled from 16th lowest to 3rd lowest over the past 3 weeks. 

 

[so_whats_happening]

On 2/6/2024 at 6:30 AM, MaineJay said:

Open water up to about 83°N.  Extent number should go up as that north Kara sea I've is dispersed, but sunbelt looks weak here. 

Also saw that area numbers tumbled from 16th lowest to 3rd lowest over the past 3 weeks. 

 

Im trying to get an idea of the image is this Svalbard/ Franz Josef Island region?

If so then yea that area got hit hard with storm winds and warmth. 

[so_whats_happening]

We have about a month and half left to gain sea ice thickness from about 70N. So areas should be able to gain about another .5m worth of thickness still. The area that worries me is just north of Alaska seems awfully weak for this time of year.

The Laptev and ESS seem to be doing rather well so far this year. Hopefully they can hold onto ice a bit longer before melting out but again concern lies in the Beaufort just north of Alaska.

I do wonder if we are seeing a bit of a see-saw come into play where the Antarctic saw really strong years while the Arctic suffered some of the lowest numbers in satellite history. Now the Antarctic is experiencing some drastically reduced numbers while the Arctic goes into a more steady state with some pokes into 2000's sea ice levels showing up. This is not to say this will recover to 80's style of extent, area, and thickness over the next decade but I wouldn't be surprised if there is something to this.

If that does happen to be the case we may not see drastic declines again for a bit in the northern hemisphere but I caution at that approach as heat does still continue to build steadily.

[so_whats_happening]

Just a quick update we have about a month left in potential freezing for about 80N so we should see just a bit more thickening of the ice but still not seeing widespread near 2m like I had hoped. 70N should start to stall out as we get close to the equinox.

Here are the past 2 years for comparison to so far.

Edited March 9 by so_whats_happening

[so_whats_happening]

We are pretty much at peak thickness, unfortunately for recent days HYCOM has not updated past 4/4/2024 so ill use these past years for similar comparisons. We don't seem too far off from the previous years, a little less old ice thickness than those years but overall about the same. Coverage as well looks relatively similar to those years but the biggest concern coming up will be the time period from about May 1st to June 30th and just how quickly melt ponds set up as well as retreat of sea ice. Of course weather will play a role and hopefully we can get a stormy pattern up that way through spring into early summer to hold things together a bit longer.

Given how extremely warm North America and the Archipelago has been this year im impressed it manage to get to where it was for ice thickness.