Arctic ice extent changes for the last two weeks are shown in the MASIE animation above. Note that the Pacific basins of Bering and Okhotsk (upper left) melted dramatically.  Meanwhile on the Atlantic side ice persisted, actually growing in Barents and Greenland seas.

The strangeness concerns weirdness in Google Earth Pro treatment of kmz files from MASIE.  Previous I have used these to produce animations like the one below for the month of March.

Today when attempting to do the same for April, this is what was shown.

That is a screen capture since Google Earth could not render an image.  I hope it is just a temporary technical difficulty.  But I can’t help but imagine this depicting some kind of military map with a two-pronged attack by red forces with a single resisting force in red and blue. Is it more virtuous canceling of all things Russian at the expense of scientific inquiry? (The mask with colors was only imposed on the Northern Hemisphere)

The melting effect on NH total ice extents during April is presented in the graph below.

The graph above shows ice extent through April comparing 2022 MASIE reports with the 16-year average, other recent years and with SII.  On average ice extents lost 1.1M km2 during April.  2022 ice extents started slightly lower, then tracked average, ending slightly above average. Both 2021 and 2007 ended  below average, by 200k km2 and 400k km2 respectively. The two green lines at the bottom show average and 2022 extents when Bering and Okhotsk ice are excluded.  On this basis 2022 Arctic was nearly 400k km2 in surplus at end of April.

Region	2022120	Day 120 Average	2022-Ave.	2007120	2022-2007
(0) Northern_Hemisphere	13623874	13507670	116204	13108068	515806
(1) Beaufort_Sea	1070776	1067739	3036	1059189	11587
(2) Chukchi_Sea	963424	955654	7770	949246	14178
(3) East_Siberian_Sea	1087137	1085485	1652	1080176	6961
(4) Laptev_Sea	897845	889961	7884	875661	22184
(5) Kara_Sea	932842	911757	21084	864664	68178
(6) Barents_Sea	654813	547685	107129	396544	258270
(7) Greenland_Sea	777073	640123	136950	644438	132635
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence	1243689	1205315	38374	1147115	96574
(9) Canadian_Archipelago	854685	848564	6121	838032	16653
(10) Hudson_Bay	1240262	1238267	1995	1222074	18188
(11) Central_Arctic	3247307	3229654	17652	3241034	6272
(12) Bering_Sea	334929	482018	-147089	475489	-140560
(13) Baltic_Sea	22696	20622	2074	14684	8012
(14) Sea_of_Okhotsk	294259	381697	-87438	295743	-1484

The only deficits to average are in Bering and Okhotsk, more than offset by surpluses everywhere else, especially in Barents and Greenland seas. 2007 extents were lower by 516k km2 (half a Wadham)

 

April 1st Footnote:

It has been a long hard winter, requiring overtime efforts by Norwegian icebreakers like this one:

In addition, cold Spring temperatures led to unusual sightings of Northern creatures: