The Arctic ice melting season was delayed this year as shown by the end of May (day 151) surplus of 600k km2 over the 16-yr average.  Since then both MASIE and SII show a steep decline in Arctic ice extents, now matching the average for June 15 (day 166).  The reports show that Barents alone lost 320k km2, Laptev down 200k km2, Baffin Bay lost 165k km2, Chukchi, Kara, Greenland seas all lost around 100k km2 each.

For the month of June Hudson Bay will take the stage.  Above average early in June. Hudson Bay lost 100k km2 the last six days. Being a shallow basin, it will likely lose much of its 1M km2 in a few weeks.

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 is documented in a post Adios, Global Warming

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

Also, a longer term perspective is informative:

The table below shows the distribution of Sea Ice across the Arctic Regions, on average, this year and 2020.

The main deficits are in Laptev and Barents Seas, mostly offset by surpluses in Beaufort, Baffin and Canadian Archipelago.

The animation shows Arctic ice extents on day 151 (end of May) from 2006 to yesterday 2022. It is evident that typically there are some regional seas starting to melt by this date, whereas 2022 remains frozen solid.  More detailed analysis is below, but note the 2022 surplus is 600k km2, or 5% above the 16 year average for day 151.  That extra ice extent amounts to 0.6 Wadhams, or 6826 Manhattan Islands, whichever index you prefer.  The graph below shows May 2022 daily ice extents compared to the 16-year average and some other years of note.

The black line shows during May on average Arctic ice extents decline ~1.8M km2 down to 11.7M km2.  The 2022 cyan MASIE line only lost 1.3M km2, starting the month 141k km2 above average and on day 151 showed a surplus of  598k km2.  The Sea Ice Index in orange (SII from NOAA) starter lower than MASIE, then ran over in later weeks, ending May nearly the same. The dark green line is average Arctic ice, excluding Bering and Okhotsk (B&O), which started melting early in 2022. The light green line is 2022 without B&O.  As of day 151, the 2022 B&O extent matches the average B&O, so the ~600k km2 surplus is entirely in the core Arctic ocean.

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 is documented in a post Adios, Global Warming

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:

The table below shows the distribution of Sea Ice on day 151 across the Arctic Regions, on average, this year and 2020.

The overall surplus to average is 598k km2, (5%).  The surplus is found in every region, except for a slight deficit in Okhotsk

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.

My previous Arctic ice report was limited by technical difficulties, now resolved as shown by the animation above.  So this update comes a week into May, with the animation covering the last three weeks from mid April.   The dramatic melting in the Pacific basins of Bering and Okhotsk (left) sets them apart from the rest of Arctic sea ice. As noted before, those two basins are outside the Arctic circle, have no polar bears and are the first places to become open water in the Spring. Elsewhere sea ice persisted, actually growing in Barents and Greenland seas.

[The staff at National Ice Center were extremely helpful, as usual.  Their work is distinctive, valuable and deserving of your appreciation.  See Support MASIE Arctic Ice Dataset]

The melting effect on NH total ice extents during this period is presented in the graph below.

The graph above shows ice extent mid-April through May 7 comparing 2022 MASIE reports with the 16-year average, other recent years and with SII.  2022 ice extents have tracked the average, going surplus for the last 10 days. .Both 2021 and 2007 are well below average, on day 127 lower than 2022 by 318k km2 and 443k km2 respectively. The two green lines at the bottom show average and 2022 extents when Bering and Okhotsk ice are excluded.  On this basis 2022 Arctic ice was nearly 400k km2 in surplus on May 7, and prior to yesterday, the horizontal line shows little loss of ice extent elsewhere than in the Pacific.

The only deficits to average are in Bering and Okhotsk, more than offset by surpluses everywhere else, especially in Barents and Greenland seas, along with Kara and Baffin Bay.  At this point, overall NH sea ice is 88% of last March maximum (15.1M kim2).  All regions are well above 90% of their maxes, except for Barents (81%), Baffin Bay (66%), Bering (33%) and Okhotsk (20%).

April 1st Footnote:

It has been a long hard winter, requiring overtime efforts by Norwegian icebreakers like this one:

In addition, cold Spring temperatures led to unusual sightings of Northern creatures:

Not only Polar bears are flourishing!

Double-click to enlarge image.

Arctic ice extent changes for the last two weeks are shown in the MASIE animation above. Note that the Pacific basins of Bering and Okhotsk (upper left) melted dramatically.  Meanwhile on the Atlantic side ice persisted, actually growing in Barents and Greenland seas.

The strangeness concerns weirdness in Google Earth Pro treatment of kmz files from MASIE.  Previous I have used these to produce animations like the one below for the month of March.

Today when attempting to do the same for April, this is what was shown.

That is a screen capture since Google Earth could not render an image.  I hope it is just a temporary technical difficulty.  But I can’t help but imagine this depicting some kind of military map with a two-pronged attack by red forces with a single resisting force in red and blue. Is it more virtuous canceling of all things Russian at the expense of scientific inquiry? (The mask with colors was only imposed on the Northern Hemisphere)

The melting effect on NH total ice extents during April is presented in the graph below.

The graph above shows ice extent through April comparing 2022 MASIE reports with the 16-year average, other recent years and with SII.  On average ice extents lost 1.1M km2 during April.  2022 ice extents started slightly lower, then tracked average, ending slightly above average. Both 2021 and 2007 ended  below average, by 200k km2 and 400k km2 respectively. The two green lines at the bottom show average and 2022 extents when Bering and Okhotsk ice are excluded.  On this basis 2022 Arctic was nearly 400k km2 in surplus at end of April.

The only deficits to average are in Bering and Okhotsk, more than offset by surpluses everywhere else, especially in Barents and Greenland seas. 2007 extents were lower by 516k km2 (half a Wadham)

April 1st Footnote:

It has been a long hard winter, requiring overtime efforts by Norwegian icebreakers like this one:

In addition, cold Spring temperatures led to unusual sightings of Northern creatures:

Not only Polar bears are flourishing!

Previous posts showed 2022 Arctic Ice broke the 15M km2 ceiling in February, followed by a typical small melt in March.  Climatology refers to the March monthly average ice extent as indicative of the annual maximum Arctic ice extent.  The graph above shows that the March monthly average has varied little since 2007, typically around the SII average of 14.7 M km2.  Of course there are regional differences as described later on.

The animation shows ice extent fluctuations during March 2022. Bering Sea (lower left) gained ice over the month, while ice in Okhotsk (higher left) retreated. At the top Kara and Barents seas lost and then gained ice.  Baffin Bay lower right lost ice during March.  The main changes were Baffin losing ~360k km2 of extent and Okhotsk losing ~260k km2.

The effect on NH total ice extents is presented in the graph below.

The graph above shows ice extent through March comparing 2022 MASIE reports with the 16-year average, other recent years and with SII.  Hovering around 15M km2 the first week, 2022 ice extents dropped sharply mid month, then stabilized and at March end matched the average. Both 2020 and 2021 ended nearly 400k km2 below average. The two green lines at the bottom show average and 2022 extents when Okhotsk ice is excluded.  On this basis 2022 Arctic was nearly 400k km2 in surplus, then declined mid month before ending nearly 200k km2 in surplus to average, except for the ice shortage in Okhotsk.

The table shows that the large deficit in Okhotsk is only partially offset by surpluses in Bering and Barents Seas.  All other regions show typical extents at end of March

April 1st Footnote:

It has been a long hard winter, requiring overtime efforts by Norwegian icebreakers like this one:

In addition, cold March temperatures led to unusual sightings of Northern creatures:

Not only Polar bears are flourishing!

A post last month noted that Arctic ice extent in February unusually exceeded 15M km2 (15 Wadhams).  This was despite slower than usual recovery of ice in Sea of Okhotsk.  That early 2022 peak ice extent has passed and will now stand as 2022 annual maximum. One wonders why the large ice deficit in that basin.  The graph below shows the anomaly.

The 2022 cyan line started March above 15M km2, then declined to day 76 (March 17), ~300k km2 lower than the 16 yr. average.  The dark green line shows Arctic ice extent average after Okhotsk is excluded, while the light green is 2022 Arctic extent without Okhotsk. The table below shows that Okhotsk deficit to average on day 76 is 260k km2, almost the entire Arctic deficit.

Most places are close to average, with a large surplus in Baffin Bay offsetting small deficits elsewhere.  The exception is Okhotsk making up most of the total deficit to average, and even a larger deficit to last year

IOW, had Okhotsk extent been average on day 60 (1.08M km2) instead of 852k km2, the surplus would have been even higher.  So why was ice missing in Okhotsk this year?

Firstly, the animation above shows that Okhotsk (and also Bering) sea ice is quite variable year over year. The MASIE record for day 60 shows Okhotsk at 880k km2 in 2006, up to 1230k km2 in 2012, down to 770k km2 in 2015, up to 1080k km2 in 2018, down to  850k km2 in 2022. Notice Okhotsk 2022 is quite similar to 2015, while Bering is about average this year.  What causes these fluctuations on annual, decadal and longer time scales?

The answer illustrates the complexity of natural factors interacting to produce climatic patterns we observe and measure. In Okhotsk in particular, and in the Arctic generally, changes in ice extents are a function of the 3 Ws: Water, Wind and Weather. More specifically, water changes in temperature (SST) and salinity (SSS); wind changes with changes in sea level pressures (SLP); and stormy weather varies between cyclonic and anticyclonic regimes. Below is discussion of these natural mechanisms.

Background on Okhotsk Sea

NASA describes Okhotsk as a Sea and Ice Factory. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

The Sea of Okhotsk is what oceanographers call a marginal sea: a region of a larger ocean basin that is partly enclosed by islands and peninsulas hugging a continental coast. With the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Kuril Islands, and Sakhalin Island partly sheltering the sea from the Pacific Ocean, and with prevailing, frigid northwesterly winds blowing out from Siberia, the sea is a winter ice factory and a year-round cloud factory.

The region is the lowest latitude (45 degrees at the southern end) where sea ice regularly forms. Ice cover varies from 50 to 90 percent each winter depending on the weather. Ice often persists for nearly six months, typically from October to March. Aside from the cold winds from the Russian interior, the prodigious flow of fresh water from the Amur River freshens the sea, making the surface less saline and more likely to freeze than other seas and bays.

Map of the Sea of Okhotsk with bottom topography. The 200- and 3000-m isobars are indicated by thin and thick solid lines, respectively. A box denotes the enlarged portion in Figure 5. White shading indicates sea-ice area (ice concentration ⩾30%) in February averaged for 2003–11; blue shading indicates open ocean area. Ice concentration from AMSR-E is used. Color shadings indicate cumulative ice production in coastal polynyas during winter (December–March) averaged from the 2002/03 to 2009/10 seasons (modified from Nihashi and others, 2012, 2017). The amount is indicated by the bar scale. Source: Cambridge Core

Basics of Weather and Ice Dynamics

Wind directions are named by which point on the compass the prevailing wind hits you in the face.  Thus, a southerly wind comes from the south toward the north, typically bringing warmer air north, and displacing colder northern air.

Winds arise from differences in surface pressures. Above every square inch on the surface of the Earth is 14.7 pounds of air. That means air exerts 14.7 pounds per square inch (psi) of pressure at Earth’s surface. High in the atmosphere, air pressure decreases.

Pressure varies from day to day at the Earth’s surface – the bottom of the atmosphere. This is, in part, because the Earth is not equally heated by the Sun. Areas where the air is warmed often have lower pressure because the warm air rises. These areas are called low pressure systems. Places where the air pressure is high, are called high pressure systems.

A low pressure system has lower pressure at its center than the areas around it. Winds blow towards the low pressure, and the air rises in the atmosphere where they meet. As the air rises, the water vapor within it condenses, forming clouds and often precipitation. Because of Earth’s spin and the Coriolis effect, winds of a low pressure system swirl counterclockwise north of the equator and clockwise south of the equator. This is called cyclonic flow. On weather maps, a low pressure system is labeled with red L.

A high pressure system has higher pressure at its center than the areas around it. Winds blow away from high pressure. Swirling in the opposite direction from a low pressure system, the winds of a high pressure system rotate clockwise north of the equator and counterclockwise south of the equator. This is called anticyclonic flow. Air from higher in the atmosphere sinks down to fill the space left as air is blown outward. On a weather map, you may notice a blue H, denoting the location of a high pressure system.

High and low pressure indicated by lines of equal pressure called isobars.

When the suns shines on land the air is warmed and rises. And because the earth is rotating, an upward spiral forms. Additionally, over wetlands and the oceans there is evaporation, which also rises, H2O being lighter than N2 or O2. When the water is warmer, the rising air intensifies and resulting in a lower pressure than surrounding areas.  Arctic cyclones disrupt drift ice, creating more open water, and impede freezing.  Arctic anticyclones (HP cells) facilitate cooling and freezing.

The vertical direction of wind motion is typically very small (except in thunderstorm updrafts) compared to the horizontal component, but is very important for determining the day to day weather. Rising air will cool, often to saturation, and can lead to clouds and precipitation. Sinking air warms causing evaporation of clouds and thus fair weather.

The closer the isobars are drawn together the quicker the air pressure changes. This change in air pressure is called the “pressure gradient”. Pressure gradient is just the difference in pressure between high- and low-pressure areas.

The Okhotsk Sea Ice Connection

Toyoda et al. (2022) explain in their paper Sea ice variability along the Okhotsk coast of Hokkaido based on long-term JMA meteorological observatory data.  Excerpts in italics with  my bolds.

Abstract

Long-term sea ice observation data at the Japan Meteorological Agency observatories along the
Okhotsk coast of Hokkaido were analyzed. The observations at the Abashiri Local Meteorological
Observatory largely explained the variations at other sites along much of the Okhotsk coast on a time scale longer than a few days. Interannually, variations of the maximum sea ice areas in the whole and southern Sea of Okhotsk were largely reflected in the yearly accumulated sea ice concentration (SIC) and sea ice duration variations at the observatories.

NPI time series The bars represent five-month mean ( November – March ) NPI values. The green line represents five-year running means of five-month mean NPI values. Positive (negative) NPI values indicate that the Aleutian Low is weaker (stronger) than its normal. For comparison with the PDO index, the period of the graph is adjusted to that of the PDO index.

A comparison with several indices for the North Pacific climate variability suggested that the North Pacific Index (NPI) is a robust indicator of the recent (after the 1980s) sea ice variations in the Sea of Okhotsk on a decadal time scale. Specifically:

♦  variations in the first sea ice appearance date at the observatories resulted from variations in the Aleutian Low with meridional wind anomalies over the Sea of Okhotsk and the air temperature around Japan in January;

♦  variations in the final disappearance date resulted from the Aleutian Low variations, and,

♦  the resulting sea ice cover variations in the Sea of Okhotsk except for the Siberian coast affected the air temperatures in April. These factors influenced the sea ice duration.

A strong linkage was found between variations in the local sea ice (along the Hokkaido coast) and large-scale fields, which will help improve our understanding of the sea ice extent and retreat variability over the Sea of Okhotsk and its linkage to the North Pacific climate variability.

Fig. 1 (a) Monthly sea ice extent (contours of grid SIC = 0.3) averaged over 1977–2019. (b) Locations of JMA observatories and distribution of dailybasis correlation coefficients between the Abashiri and grid SICs. (N = 700–800 approximately).

Fig. 2 (a) Yearly maximum sea ice areas in the Sea of Okhotsk from the grid SIC data for the whole (black; left axis), northern (>50°N; green; left axis), and southern (<50°N; red; right axis) areas.

Among several climate indices, the NPI is a robust indicator of recent (after the 1980s) sea ice
variations in the Sea of Okhotsk. We also examined the differences between the start and end date variations, which determine the durations. Variations in the start date at the Okhotsk coast sites resulted from the variations in the Aleutian Low strength, the air temperature around Japan in January, and partly the SST along the Soya warm current in December. Variations in the end date resulted from the Aleutian Low variations; the sea ice cover variations affected the air temperatures over the Sea of Okhotsk in April, in contrast to the sea ice cover variations in January resulting from the air temperature variations.

Sea Ice Tourism from Hokkaido, Japan

Taking a boat trip from Hokkaido Island to see Okhotsk drift ice is a big tourist attraction, as seen in the short video below.  Al Gore had them worried back then, but hopefully not now.

Drift ice in Okhotsk Sea at sunrise.