The arctic ice extents are now reported through mid-July 2026, and as noted previously the wavy polar vortex has hampered ice formation with incursions of warmer southern air into the Arctic circle.  This factor receded in May and June, with extents closing the gap with the averages. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) goes through the Russian shelf seas of Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi seas on the way to Bering Strait in Beaufort Sea.

As the image from July 15 shows, despite the melting on the margins, the Arctic Ocean core is solid, expecially along the Eurasian NSR seen on the left vertical side. Some open water is appearing in Laptev (top left) and East Siberian sea (mid Left), but still extensive land fast ice.  As usual mid July, Hudson Bay (bottom right) is mostly open water, as is Baffin Bay (middle right).  Canadain Archipelago remains largely ice covered.

The chart below shows the 20-year mid July averages for Arctic ice extents, along with 2026, 2025 and 2007 as well as SII v.4. Note that on average during this period 2.4M km2 of ice extent is lost.  By comparison SII v.4 lost 2.6M and MASIE lost 2.2M. In other words, MASIE 2026 ice melt is just one day ahead of average.

Note the deficit to average mid-June was ~400k km2 but since then 2026 extents tracked close to average before ending down 110k km2. SII tracked close to MASIE last half of June, but as we have seen in previous months SII v.4 lost a lot of ice in the last two weeks ending 338k km2 lower than MASIE, or 1/3 of a Wadham.

The table below shows the distibution of ice extents on day 196 across regions of the Arctic ocean.

Region	2026196	Day 196 Average	2026-Ave.	2007196	2026-2007
(0) Northern_Hemisphere	8230702	8340811	-110110	8354527	-123825
(1) Beaufort_Sea	1044469	874320	170149	845938	198531
(2) Chukchi_Sea	781718	647606	134112	576079	205639
(3) East_Siberian_Sea	908640	924076	-15436	788128	120513
(4) Laptev_Sea	719818	563593	156224	575520	144298
(5) Kara_Sea	245022	350290	-105268	483785	-238762
(6) Barents_Sea	36	53993	-53957	75731	-75695
(7) Greenland_Sea	321463	401993	-80531	472890	-151428
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence	267821	309518	-41696	342503	-74682
(9) Canadian_Archipelago	719994	707260	12734	730894	-10900
(10) Hudson_Bay	184771	339584	-154813	248785	-64014
(11) Central_Arctic	3034736	3164687	-129951	3211275	-176539

The table shows that many regions are close to or above the 20-year average. The Eurasian shelf seas of Laptev, Chukchi and Beaufort are in surplus. The majority of the 1.3% overall deficit is from Hudson Bay, Central Arctic, Kara and Greenland seas.  Excepting Central Arctic, those regions will be ice-free end of summer. Bering and Okhotsk seas are left off the list since they are open water now as usual.

 

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.