Remarkable Arctic ice recovery continued in December as seen in the animation below:

The month of December 2021 shows Hudson Bay (lower right) starting with only some shore ice and ending virtually ice covered, adding in that basin 925K km2, nearly a full Wadham. Just above Hudson, you can see the Gulf of St. Lawrence icing over, and Baffin Bay adding ice as well, adding 257k km2 to the total.

At the extreme left Okhotsk Sea also starts with shore ice and grows 435k km2, reaching down to Japan.  At the top Kara freezes over and Barents and Greenland Seas add ice to their margins. The graph below shows the December ice recovery

Note the average year adds 2M km2 and 2021 exceeded that by ~200k km2, maintaining its surplus position.  Other years starting far behind drew closer to average by the end.  SII has not yet reported its estimate of day 365.

The table below shows year-end ice extents in the various Arctic basins compared to the 14-year averages and some recent years.

Region	2021365	Day 365 Average	2021-Ave.	2020365	2021-2020
(0) Northern_Hemisphere	13340119	13052148	287971	12765491	574628
(1) Beaufort_Sea	1070776	1070324	452	1070689	87
(2) Chukchi_Sea	966006	964420	1586	966006	0
(3) East_Siberian_Sea	1087137	1087132	5	1087120	17
(4) Laptev_Sea	897827	897841	-14	897827	0
(5) Kara_Sea	932872	883615	49256	879232	53640
(6) Barents_Sea	653611	423352	230260	371122	282489
(7) Greenland_Sea	620509	579341	41168	592839	27671
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence	873269	1003682	-130413	867509	5760
(9) Canadian_Archipelago	854685	853276	1409	854597	88
(10) Hudson_Bay	1245910	1236600	9311	1257919	-12009
(11) Central_Arctic	3221247	3203619	17628	3159881	61366
(12) Bering_Sea	358002	408726	-50724	249522	108481
(13) Baltic_Sea	61428	30674	30755	7986	53443
(14) Sea_of_Okhotsk	478257	382234	96023	479972	-1715

This year’s ice extent is almost 300k km2 or 2% above average.  Only Baffin Bay and Bering Sea are in deficit to average, more than offset by surpluses elsewhere, especially in Kara, Barents and Okhotsk seas.

Comparing Arctic Ice at End of Years

At  the bottom is a discussion of statistics on year-end Arctic Sea Ice extents.  The values are averages of the last five days of each year.  End of December is a neutral point in the melting-freezing cycle, midway between September minimum and March maximum extents.

Background from Previous Post Updated to Year-End 2021

Some years ago reading a thread on global warming at WUWT, I was struck by one person’s comment: “I’m an actuary with limited knowledge of climate metrics, but it seems to me if you want to understand temperature changes, you should analyze the changes, not the temperatures.” That rang bells for me, and I applied that insight in a series of Temperature Trend Analysis studies of surface station temperature records. Those posts are available under this heading. Climate Compilation Part I Temperatures

This post seeks to understand Arctic Sea Ice fluctuations using a similar approach: Focusing on the rates of extent changes rather than the usual study of the ice extents themselves. Fortunately, Sea Ice Index (SII) from NOAA provides a suitable dataset for this project. As many know, SII relies on satellite passive microwave sensors to produce charts of Arctic Ice extents going back to 1979.  The current Version 3 has become more closely aligned with MASIE, the modern form of Naval ice charting in support of Arctic navigation. The SII User Guide is here.

There are statistical analyses available, and the one of interest (table below) is called Sea Ice Index Rates of Change (here). As indicated by the title, this spreadsheet consists not of monthly extents, but changes of extents from the previous month. Specifically, a monthly value is calculated by subtracting the average of the last five days of the previous month from this month’s average of final five days. So the value presents the amount of ice gained or lost during the present month.

These monthly rates of change have been compiled into a baseline for the period 1980 to 2010, which shows the fluctuations of Arctic ice extents over the course of a calendar year. Below is a graph of those averages of monthly changes during the baseline period. Those familiar with Arctic Ice studies will not be surprised at the sine wave form. December end is a relatively neutral point in the cycle, midway between the September Minimum and March Maximum.

The graph makes evident the six spring/summer months of melting and the six autumn/winter months of freezing.  Note that June-August produce the bulk of losses, while October-December show the bulk of gains. Also the peak and valley months of March and September show very little change in extent from beginning to end.

The table of monthly data reveals the variability of ice extents over the last 4 decades.

The values in January show changes from the end of the previous December, and by summing twelve consecutive months we can calculate an annual rate of change for the years 1979 to 2021.

 

As many know, there has been a decline of Arctic ice extent over these 40 years, averaging 70k km2 per year. But year over year, the changes shift constantly between gains and losses.

Moreover, it seems random as to which months are determinative for a given year. For example, much ado was printed about June and July 2021 melting faster than expected resulting in higher losses of ice extents. But then the final 3 months of 2021 more than made up for those summer losses

As it happens in this dataset, October has the highest rate of adding ice. The table below shows the variety of monthly rates in the record as anomalies from the 1980-2010 baseline. In this exhibit a red cell is a negative anomaly (less than baseline for that month) and blue is positive (higher than baseline).

 

Note that the  +/ –  rate anomalies are distributed all across the grid, sequences of different months in different years, with gains and losses offsetting one another.  Yes, June 2021 lost more ice than the baseline, but about the same as 2017, and not as much as 2012. The gains in Oct.-Dec. 2021 were ~1M km2 above baseline, but were exceeded by the same months in 2019 and 2020.  The bottom line presents the average anomalies for each month over the period 1979-2021.  Note the rates of gains and losses mostly offset, and the average of all months in the bottom right cell is virtually zero.

A final observation: The graph below shows the Yearend Arctic Ice Extents for the last 32 years.

 

 

Year-end Arctic ice extents (last 5 days of December) show three distinct regimes: 1988-1998, 1998-2010, 2010-2021. The average year-end extent 1989-2010 is 13.4M km2. In the last decade, 2011 was 13.0M km2, and six years later, 2017 was 12.3M km2. 2021 rose back to 13.06  So for all the the fluctuations, the net is zero, or a gain from 2010. Talk of an Arctic ice death spiral is fanciful.

These data show a noisy, highly variable natural phenomenon. Clearly, unpredictable factors are in play, principally water structure and circulation, atmospheric circulation regimes, and also incursions and storms. And in the longer view, today’s extents are not unusual.

 

 

Illustration by Eleanor Lutz shows Earth’s seasonal climate changes. If played in full screen, the four corners present views from top, bottom and sides. It is a visual representation of scientific datasets measuring Arctic ice extents.