The Great White Con

The Arctic sea ice refreeze has started with a bang, and JAXA/ViSHOP extent is currently 17th lowest for the date in the satellite era: A large area of the Beaufort Sea melted late and has now refrozen swiftly: Here’s the current AWI concentration map.

With the 2026 minimum extent rapidly approaching, JAXA/ViSHOP extent is currently 12th lowest for the date in the satellite era: Despite the falling air temperatures, the AWI concentration map is still showing plenty of open water near the North Pole: Note

Last summer Ella Hibbert set off from Haslar Marina near Portsmouth in southern England alone in her yacht Yeva, intending to circumnavigate the Arctic in a single summer,.

July was once again dominated by low pressure and anomalously low temperatures over the central Arctic: As a consequence the NSIDC monthly average extent for July was 6th lowest in their record going back to 1979: August began with low pressure still domi…

Here is an animation of recent events at the Jakobshavn Glacier, courtesy of Espen Olsen at the Arctic Sea Ice Forum.

At the beginning of July the JAXA/ViSHOP web site is undergoing maintenance yet again!

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…

It’s going to be more difficult to follow traffic on the Northern Sea Route this year, because the Russian authorities are no longer publishing daily position information for ships using the route.

The JAXA/ViSHOP web site is currently undergoing maintenance, but here is how their 2 day average extent graph looked for June 2nd: Extent was 3rd lowest in the JAXA record, behind 2016 and 2019.

JAXA have updated their visualisations of Arctic sea ice extent data.

In early April JAXA Arctic sea ice extent is 3rd lowest for the date, albeit in a “statistical tie” with last year: The Alfred Wegener Institute’s regional extent graphs reveal an intriguing divergence on the Pacific periphery, where sea ice extent in the…