It’s official–This leap year February is complete and we can now look at the annual Arctic Ice Extent situation at day 60 with two months in the books.

The Resurgence of Arctic ice is continuing in MASIE, the most accurate dataset, but in SII, the remote sensing dataset, not so much.

The MASIE graph shows an extent matching the ten-year average. At 15.02 M km2, 2016 exceeds 2015 annual maximum of 14.91 recorded on day 62, and this year’s peak ice may well go higher.

This table shows comparisons between MASIE and SII

Months	MASIE 2016	SII 2016	MASIE 2016-2015	SII 2016-2015	SII – MASIE
Jan	13.922	13.472	-0.019	-0.131	-0.450
Feb	14.804	14.210	0.121	-0.199	-0.593

It is readily shown that SII is severely underestimating this year’s growth of ice compared both to SII 2015 and to MASIE. A monthly differential of nearly 600k km2 has opened up due to SII showing a large decline while MASIE shows a gain compared to last year.

Below is a comparison from MASIE regarding the NH seas comprising the NH statistics.

Ice Extents			Ice Extent
Region	2015060	2016060	km2 Diff.
(0) Northern_Hemisphere	14856201	15018131	161930
(1) Beaufort_Sea	1070445	1070445	0
(2) Chukchi_Sea	966006	965989	-17
(3) East_Siberian_Sea	1087137	1087120	-17
(4) Laptev_Sea	897845	897809	-36
(5) Kara_Sea	935023	933890	-1133
(6) Barents_Sea	701064	529545	-171519
(7) Greenland_Sea	677415	582658	-94757
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence	1828321	1588399	-239922
(9) Canadian_Archipelago	853214	853178	-36
(10) Hudson_Bay	1260903	1260854	-49
(11) Central_Arctic	3246891	3208216	-38675
(12) Bering_Sea	508062	623647	115585
(13) Baltic_Sea	22187	86770	64583
(14) Sea_of_Okhotsk	768839	1308697	539858
(15) Yellow_Sea	0	14137	14137
(16) Cook_Inlet	5303	3505	-1798

In the table 2016 shows two seas on the Atlantic side lower than this date last year, Barents and Greenland Seas, while the Baltic is much higher, though a smaller size sea.  Barents had grown to almost 600k km2 by day 20, then lost 150k up to day 55, but has now regained half of that loss.

Baffin Bay is down some, but not a large %, while CAA is the same extent.

On the Pacific side, Okhotsk which was the lowest in the last 10 years in 2015 has much more ice now, nearly the highest in 10 years. Bering is also up, so it may be a case of “Goodbye Blob, Hello Normal.”

So is the Winter ending and stopping the ice growth?

Here is my local observation:

That’s the snowpack on our street seen from my driveway. And I went cross-country skiing today, an activity normally precluded in March by lack of snow cover and temperatures above freezing. With fresh snowfall last night and -13C this morning, it was one of the best days this season. With a blizzard warning and more snow expected tonight, I’m likely to be back out later this week.

So the report from here: The Siberian Express is on time and going strong.

What’s happening with Arctic ice?

It depends on whose measurements you look at. Before you decide, make sure you have read NOAA is Losing Arctic Ice.