This week has news reports frightened about the early melting of ice in Bering Sea.  This post is to reassure everyone that the lost ice has been found, most of it just next door in Okhotsk sea.

The Pacific basins of Bering and Okhotsk display opposing ice patterns this year.

The last two weeks saw open water growing on the right in Bering Sea, now down to 140k km2, one-fourth of its maximum extent.  Meanwhile, Okhotsk on the left grew steadily, now pressing down on Hokkaido Island, producing the southernmost Arctic Ice to be found. The graph below shows how 2019 compares to the 12 year average, after taking the Bering anomaly out of the picture.

The chart runs from mid-February to mid-March, showing how 2019 NH ice extent peaked above average on day 54, declined for a week, then rose again recently.  The effect of Bering ice loss appears in the gaps between NH extents with and without Bering ice.  Note that the black and green lines show Bering has contributed about 700k km2 to the overall total, and that increases to 800k km2 by day 76.

2019 NH included about 500k km2 from Bering on day 32, but the Bering extent has steadily decreased, now only 140k km2.  Thus 2019 w/o Bering is 270k km2 greater than NH average w/o Bering at this time, with another 10 days or so for additional ice to form.

The table below shows ice extents in the various basins on day 64.

Region	2019064	Day 064  Average	2019-Ave.	2018064	2019-2018
(0) Northern_Hemisphere	14706623	15022070	-315447	14461393	245231
(1) Beaufort_Sea	1070498	1070200	297	1070445	53
(2) Chukchi_Sea	943452	965931	-22479	965161	-21709
(3) East_Siberian_Sea	1087137	1087133	4	1087120	18
(4) Laptev_Sea	897845	897842	3	897845	0
(5) Kara_Sea	934558	927864	6694	934055	503
(6) Barents_Sea	781551	642119	139431	598121	183430
(7) Greenland_Sea	553335	639443	-86108	548263	5072
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence	1575867	1538064	37803	1610374	-34507
(9) Canadian_Archipelago	853337	853037	300	853109	229
(10) Hudson_Bay	1260903	1259978	925	1260838	66
(11) Central_Arctic	3246782	3218361	28421	3150790	95993
(12) Bering_Sea	140439	716013	-575574	286010	-145571
(13) Baltic_Sea	64749	106825	-42077	166155	-101407
(14) Sea_of_Okhotsk	1285797	1063174	222622	1008051	277746

The Bering deficit is 575k km2 or just 20% of the 12 year average.  Surpluses in Okhotsk, Baffin, Central Arctic and Barents do not completely offset, so the NH total is 315k km2 or 2% below average.

Taking a boat trip from Hokkaido Island to see Okhotsk drift ice is a big tourist attraction, as seen in the short video below.  Al Gore had them worried back then, but not now.