Arctic Watch

Facts About the Arctic

Analysis

Facts About the Arctic in January 2023

At the beginning of the New Year all the central regions of the Arctic are now refrozen apart from a small area of the Kara Sea: Most Arctic sea ice metrics are near the middle of their respective ranges over…

Facts About the Arctic in December 2022

A new month is upon us and Christmas is coming! Here’s another look at Lars Kaleschke’s high resolution AMSR2 area and extent graphs for the Arctic as a whole: Extent increase stalled for the last few days of November, and…

Facts About the Arctic in November 2022

A change is allegedly as good as a rest, so here’s an alternative view of high resolution AMSR2 area and extent created using the experimental tools provided by the AWI’s Lars Kaleschke at: https://sites.google.com/view/sea-ice/ After a brief pause mid-month the…

Rewriting The Arctic

Peter, a welcome new denizen here at the Great White Con Ivory Towers, appears to have parachuted into our far north summer hideaway on the shores of Santa’s Secret Summer Swimming Pool straight from Tony Heller‘s Unreal Climate Science blog….

Facts About the Arctic in October 2022

The 2022/23 freezing season has begun, so to begin with here are Arctic sea ice area and extent during its early stages: Both metrics are currently tracking 2021 quite closely. Here too is an AMSR2 animation of the transition from…

Transition time

Throughout February, Arctic sea ice extent tracked between second and fourth lowest in the satellite record while Antarctic sea ice extent tracked at record low extents. Antarctic sea ice has hit its minimum extent for the year, setting a new…

Antarctic sea ice settles on record low extent, again

On February 21, Antarctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent of 1.79 million square kilometers (691,000 square miles). This the lowest sea ice extent in the 1979 to 2023 sea ice record, setting a record low for the…

Antarctic sea ice extent sets a new record low

Antarctic sea ice extent appears to have broken the record low set last year. With a couple more weeks likely left in the melt season, the extent is expected to drop further before reaching its annual minimum. Much of the…

Analysis

Arctic sea ice low, Antarctic lower

Arctic sea ice extent rose at a slower than average rate through January, and continued to be below the lower interdecile range. By the end of the month, sea ice reached the second lowest extent in the satellite record. Meanwhile, Antarctic…