The image above shows melting of Arctic sea ice extent over the last half of June 2022.  As usual the process of declining ice extent follows a LIFO pattern:  Last In First Out.  That is, the marginal seas are the last to freeze and the first to melt.  Thus on the extreme left of the image, the Pacific basins of Bering and Okhotsk seas are entirely open water.  Meanwhile on the lower right, Hudson Bay ice retreats 400k km2 from north to south.  Note center right Hudson Strait opens up between Hudson Bay and Baffin Bay.  At the top center Barents Sea ice retreated down to 40k km2 or 5% of its last maximum. Kara Sea upper left lost 340k km2 down to 45% of its last max.  Center left Laptev has melted somewhat, but still retains 76% of its maximum ice extent. The central mass of Arctic ice is intact with some fluctuations back and forth, and as well as Beaufort Sea and CAA (Canadian Arctic Archipelago) were slow to melt in June, retaining 97% of maximum ice in each basin.

The graph below shows the ice extent retreating during June compared to some other years and the 16 year average (2006 to 2021 inclusive).

The chart black line shows that on average in June Arctic ice extent goes down 1.8M km2.  2020, as well as 2007 started June above average, but ended the month matching average. SII was higher than MASIE some days, but ended up the same.  Since Hudson Bay melts the most at this time, the dark green line shows the Arctic total excluding Hudson Bay (HB).  The light green is 2022 minus HB, showing that most of the surplus to average ice was in Hudson Bay starting June, and then retreated to average in the second half of June.  Again note that Hudson Bay is outside the Arctic circle and will be open water soon.

The table shows where the ice is distributed compared to average.  Bering and Okhotsk are open water at this point and are dropped from this and future monthly updates. 

The main deficits to average are in  Kara, Barents and Hudson Bay,  offset by surpluses in  Beaufort, East Siberian, Baffin Bay and CAA.

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.