The arctic ice extents are now reported through Mid-May 2026, and as noted previously the wavy polar vortex has hampered ice formation with incusions of warmer southern air into the Arctic circle.  This was still a factor early in May, but now appears to be receding, according to the AER Polar Vortex blog (May 11).

Judah Cohen:  As I discussed in the previous blog, I do think that the influence from the PV did continue into easrly May, and in fact May so far has been impressively cool in Eastern Canada and the Eastern and less so in parts of Europe (see Figure ii). With more Greenland blocking predicted (see Figure i) is that still the influence of the PV?

From Figure 11, it appears that the influence of the PV split/Final Warming has ended this week with cold/negative polar cap height standardized geopotential height anomalies (PCHs) throughout the stratosphere and tropsophere. Last week I used the PCH limited to the North Atlantic sector to argue the ongoing influence of the PV split and today’s plot (see Figure iii) does not provide any longer an alternative interpretation but rather any further influence of the PV will have to wait until next fall. Though I think this does need to be qualified as my interpretation rather than being fully objective.

The chart below shows the 20-year averages for Arctic ice extents from Mid-April to Mid-May March along with 2026, 2025 and 2006 as well as SII v.4.

Remarkably the deficit to average opened up on May 5 (day 125) to 739k km2, but since then the gap was cut in half, reaching 328k km2 at the end of this period.  The 20-year average maximum daily ice extent loss over this period is 1.5M km2, and in 2026 the decline was 1.2M km2. These are MASIE stats, but SII shows virtually the same results.

The table below shows the distibution of ice extents on day 136 across regions of the Arctic ocean.

Region	2026136	Day 136 Ave.	2026-Ave.	2006136	2026-2006
(0) Northern_Hemisphere	12271401	12599588	-328188	12157814	113586
(1) Beaufort_Sea	1071070	1047101	23969	1066139	4931
(2) Chukchi_Sea	940742	927240	13502	956734	-15992
(3) East_Siberian_Sea	1065475	1081524	-16050	1074876	-9402
(4) Laptev_Sea	872186	878598	-6412	889990	-17804
(5) Kara_Sea	917017	873944	43073	839569	77448
(6) Barents_Sea	344186	411348	-67162	182554	161632
(7) Greenland_Sea	549259	621605	-72346	519337	29922
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence	917090	1054954	-137865	892335	24755
(9) Canadian_Archipelago	853177	841640	11537	828806	24370
(10) Hudson_Bay	1176685	1172007	4677	1071342	105343
(11) Central_Arctic	3212502	3223772	-11270	3169225	43277
(12) Bering_Sea	248490	285726	-37236	478464	-229973
(13) Baltic_Sea	0	5749	-5749	15239	-15239
(14) Sea_of_Okhotsk	101440	172136	-70695	168615	-67174

The table shows that most regions are close to or above the 20-year average.  The majority of the 3% overall deficit is from Baffin Bay, down 138k km2,  Smaller deficits are in Okhotsk, Barents and Greenland seas.  All of those regions will be nearly ice-free end of summer.

 

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 ice and snow extents.