The image above shows melting of Arctic sea ice extent over the first half of July 2022.  As usual, on the extreme left of the image, the Pacific basins of Bering and Okhotsk seas are entirely open water.  Meanwhile on the lower far right, Hudson Bay ice retreats from 600k km2 to 300k km2 from north to south.  Note center right Hudson Strait opens up between Hudson Bay and Baffin Bay.  At the top center Barents Sea is mostly open water, while Kara Sea upper left lost 200k km2 down to 29% of its last max.  Center left Laptev has melted somewhat, but still retains 63% 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 July, retaining 91% of maximum ice in each basin.

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

The chart black line shows that on average in these 30 days Arctic ice extent goes down 2.5 Wadhams (M km2).  2022 started nearly average, melted faster than average late June, then went surplus in July continuing to yesterday July 16.  SII was higher than MASIE some days, lower other days, but ended up the same. 2020 started 500k km2 down, and on day 197 was 800k km2 deficit to average. 

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. 

Region	2022197	Day 197 Average	2022-Ave.	2020197	2022-2020
(0) Northern_Hemisphere	8406464	8243242	163222	7467638	938826
(1) Beaufort_Sea	971940	857420	114520	933571	38369
(2) Chukchi_Sea	669852	624347	45504	613199	56653
(3) East_Siberian_Sea	928329	908426	19903	651811	276519
(4) Laptev_Sea	566487	546079	20408	133721	432765
(5) Kara_Sea	271923	335569	-63647	127208	144715
(6) Barents_Sea	15777	56412	-40635	40301	-24524
(7) Greenland_Sea	333097	398154	-65057	405198	-72102
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence	383118	286652	96466	242131	140987
(9) Canadian_Archipelago	784359	706015	78344	737235	47124
(10) Hudson_Bay	293184	352063	-58880	495103	-201920
(11) Central_Arctic	3186972	3167895	19076	3087401	99571

The main deficits to average are in  Kara, Barents, Greenland Sea and Hudson Bay,  more than offset by surpluses in  Beaufort, Chukchi, 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.