Arctic Ice Breaks Max Ceiling Mid March 2024

Arctic Ice Roaring Back in Max Month of March

The animation shows growing Arctic ice extents over the last two weeks. Of course central Arctic basins are frozen solid, and the additions are visible on both the Atlantic side (right) and the Pacific (left).

The graph below shows March daily ice extents for 2024 compared to 18 year averages, and some years of note.

The black line shows during March on average Arctic ice extents nearly reach 15 Wadhams (15M km2) on Day 62, March 2.  A slow decline is normal until Day 75, March 15.  However, that period in 2024 saw Arctic ice increase 430k km2, nearly half a Wadham.  Note also that this year ice extents rose above 15M already in February, and now in March ice has been well above that threshold for the last week.  2006 was the first year in this dataset and on Day 75 was 704k km2 less than yesterday.  As usual in transitional months like March and September SII (Sea Ice Index) shows a similar pattern with generally lower extents.

Why is this important?  All the claims of global climate emergency depend on dangerously higher temperatures, lower sea ice, and rising sea levels.  The lack of additional warming prior to 2023 El Nino is documented in a post UAH January 2024: Ocean Warm, Land Cooling.

The lack of acceleration in sea levels along coastlines has been discussed also.  See USCS Warnings of Coastal Flooding

Also, a longer term perspective is informative:

post-glacial_sea_levelThe table below shows the distribution of Sea Ice on day 75 across the Arctic Regions, on average, this year and 2006.

Region 2024075 Day 75 Ave 2024-Ave. 2006075 2024-2006
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere 15124987 14895040 229947 14420679 704309
 (1) Beaufort_Sea 1070983 1070317 667 1069711 1273
 (2) Chukchi_Sea 966006 965891 115 964227 1779
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea 1087137 1087110 27 1086702 435
 (4) Laptev_Sea 897845 897837 8 897773 71
 (5) Kara_Sea 935023 920555 14469 921428 13595
 (6) Barents_Sea 671826 643180 28646 646196 25630
 (7) Greenland_Sea 771468 621747 149721 613161 158308
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence 1336897 1529678 -192781 1134817 202080
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago 854860 853214 1646 852715 2145
 (10) Hudson_Bay 1260903 1258048 2855 1251360 9543
 (11) Central_Arctic 3243865 3222218 21647 3244243 -378
 (12) Bering_Sea 723227 735481 -12254 635252 87975
 (13) Baltic_Sea 78741 80321 -1580 175063 -96322
 (14) Sea_of_Okhotsk 1215262 990338 224924 874372 340890

The overall surplus to average is 230k km2, (2%).  The only major deficit is in Baffin Bay, more than offset by surpluses in Okhotsk and Greenland seas.  Everywhere else is maxed out.

bathymetric_map_arctic_ocean

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.

 

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