Despite the feverish reporting that last summer was hell, and that hot is now the “new normal,” the Arctic ice man is hard at work.  In reality, Arctic ice is spreading everywhere.  The image below shows how quickly Hudson Bay froze over in recent days.

Baffin Bay in the center next to Greenland is extending south and added 250k km2.  Hudson Bay on the left added 700k km2, now at 73% of maximum, with both east and west coastlines freezing all the way down into James Bay.

On the Eurasian side, on the left margin Chukchi is closing in.  On the right side Kara has added 300k km2 of ice extent, now at 85% of maximum

The graph below shows 2018 is now exceeding the 11-year average after being down in October.

MASIE is showing  10.8M km2 ice extent, 400k km2 greater than the average for day 327, Nov. 23.  SII is slightly lower, while 2007 is almost 500k km2 lower. In fact, in the past decade, only two years, 2013 and 2015, had more ice than 2018 at this date.

Small deficits in Chukchi, Greenland and Barents Seas are more than offset by surpluses in Kara Sea, Baffin and Hudson Bays. Note Hudson Bay is more than twice the average for this date.

Meanwhile, in Nunavut, it is a great time to be a polar bear, even more of them than people want.

Is this cold the “New Normal?”