{"id":518,"date":"2023-06-04T16:21:02","date_gmt":"2023-06-04T16:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/2023\/06\/04\/the-northwest-passage-in-2023\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T01:01:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T23:01:43","slug":"the-northwest-passage-in-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/2023\/06\/04\/the-northwest-passage-in-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"The Northwest Passage in 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Prompted by a comment by Tom in the June open thread<\/a>, the time has evidently come to open the 2023 Northwest Passage passage thread. First of all let\u2019s get our bearings with the help of this map of the area:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

and another map detailing the routes through Canadian Arctic Archipelago that have previously been successfully traversed:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

As our starter for ten<\/a> for 2023, there is already plenty of open water in the Amundsen Gulf, together with plenty of melt ponding on the remaining fast ice in Franklin and Darnley Bays:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\u201cFalse colour\u201d image of the Lena Delta on\u00a0June 3rd<\/a>\u00a0from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That is reflected in the current Canadian Arctic Archipelago sea ice area graph:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Let\u2019s also take a look at the third dimension. Here\u2019s the PIOMAS gridded thickness map for May 31st:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Here too is the last CryoSat-2\/SMOS merged thickness map of the winter, from April 15th:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

To get a better feel for what might happen during the coming summer season let\u2019s also take a look at the\u00a0Canadian Ice Service<\/a>\u2018s \u201cstage of development\u201d charts. Here\u2019s the most recent one for the \u201cWestern Arctic\u201d, from May 29th:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Note that none of the assorted routes through the North West Passage are currently blocked by old ice. Not even Route 1 via McClure Strait!<\/p>\n

Finally, for the moment at least, here too is the CIS\u2019s sea ice concentration chart:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

To be continued\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prompted by a comment by Tom in the June open thread, the time has evidently come to open the 2023 Northwest Passage passage thread. First of all let\u2019s get our bearings with the help of this map of the area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3261,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518\/revisions\/3261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}