The arctic ice extents are now reported through 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 31 shows, the Arctic Ocean core is still solid, while parts of the Eurasian NSR have open water on the left vertical side. Ice persists in Laptev (top left) and Chukchi (bottom Left).  As usual in July, Hudson Bay (bottom right) is full open water, as is Baffin Bay (middle right).  Canadian Archipelago retains considerable ice cover.

The chart below shows the 20-year 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 2.7M km2 of ice extent is lost. MASIE tracked average throughout, slipping below mid month, before ending July with a slight surplus.  SII v.4 continues to underestimate Arctic ice extent, ending July 0.4M km2 in deficit to MASIE, and down 338k km2 for the July month average.

The table below shows the distibution of ice extents on day 212 across regions of the Arctic ocean.

Region	2026212	Day 212 AVe	2026-Ave.	2007212	2026-2007
(0) Northern_Hemisphere	6931831	6921789	10042	6344860	586971
(1) Beaufort_Sea	996685	800758	195927	760576	236109
(2) Chukchi_Sea	749028	558330	190698	382350	366678
(3) East_Siberian_Sea	668170	748092	-79922	445385	222785
(4) Laptev_Sea	508311	368784	139527	314382	193929
(5) Kara_Sea	113891	160107	-46216	239232	-125340
(6) Barents_Sea	36	28134	-28098	23703	-23667
(7) Greenland_Sea	131468	293251	-161783	324737	-193270
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence	107049	149072	-42023	94179	12870
(9) Canadian_Archipelago	561573	543590	17983	510063	51510
(10) Hudson_Bay	114812	136490	-21678	93655	21158
(11) Central_Arctic	2978659	3133437	-154778	3154837	-176178

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 only sizeable deficits are Greenland Sea and Central Arctic. 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.