Tag Archives: 2016

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The Arctic

It's been quite a year in the Arctic. Over the winter 2015/6 we had the strongest and coldest Arctic polar vortex of the last 68 years. This contributed to a low maximum in Arctic sea ice extent. At that stage only the locals and the scientists were looking, and I wrote about this in a blog post called Arctic sea ice 2016. This was followed by the joint second lowest Arctic summer sea ice extent.

Unusual weather in the early winter led to records being broken and the sea ice the Arctic sea has been the lowest recorded in the satellite record for the time of year.

Where are we at the Northern winter solstice?

The mean Arctic sea ice for the years 1989-93 on 21 December, the sea ice concentration on 21 December 2016 and the difference between the two data sets. Blue shades imply more sea ice and reds imply decreased sea ice compared with the mean. The original data come from the DMSP SMMI data set at the NSIDC.
The mean Arctic sea ice for the years 1989-93 on 21 December, the sea ice concentration on 21 December 2016 and the difference between the two data sets. Blue shades imply more sea ice and reds imply decreased sea ice compared with the mean. The original data come from the DMSP SMMI data set at the NSIDC.

The ice edges have retreated compared with 1989 - but as I wrote about in Record Low Arctic Sea Ice Extent we still have the very low sea ice concentration in the Barents Sea. There is also  still a very low concentration region north of the Bering Strait but the the Chukchi Sea and Hudson Bay have mostly frozen over.

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