From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

Impressive Arctic ice recovery continued in January, growing a month’s worth in just three weeks, as seen in the animation below:

In three weeks of January 2024, the Arctic added nearly a full Wadham of ice (1M km2). The animation shows Hudson Bay (lower right) freezing completely.  Just above Hudson, you can see the Gulf of St. Lawrence icing over, and Baffin Bay adding ice, extending fast ice all the way to Newfoundland, now up to 64% of its annual maximum.

At the extreme and lower left, Okhotsk and Bering Seas also grow rapidly. Okhotsk grew ice extent up to 914k, 81% of its max last March.  Bering grew up to 514k km2, 68% of its max.  At the top Kara freezes over and Barents and Greenland Seas add ice to their margins.The graph below shows the January ice recovery.

Note the average January ends at 14.36 km2 while 2024 has already reached 14.33 km2, up from 13.39 km2 at the start, and presently  288k km2 above average. SII started slightly lower than MASIE and tracked quite closely since. Note that other recent years have varied below the 18-year average at month end.

The table below shows year-end ice extents in the various Arctic basins compared to the 18-year averages and some recent years.

Region	2024022	Day 22	2024-Ave.	2018022	2024-2018
(0) Northern_Hemisphere	14333601	14045488	288112	13505957	827644
(1) Beaufort_Sea	1070983	1070317	667	1070445	538
(2) Chukchi_Sea	966006	965999	7	965971	35
(3) East_Siberian_Sea	1087137	1087131	6	1087120	18
(4) Laptev_Sea	897845	897837	8	897845	0
(5) Kara_Sea	932571	910022	22549	891776	40795
(6) Barents_Sea	712531	530554	181977	322465	390067
(7) Greenland_Sea	703581	601855	101726	465828	237753
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence	1050488	1239519	-189031	1330666	-280179
(9) Canadian_Archipelago	854860	853382	1479	853109	1752
(10) Hudson_Bay	1260903	1260695	209	1260838	66
(11) Central_Arctic	3230107	3203377	26730	3165195	64912
(12) Bering_Sea	513853	600796	-86943	343164	170689
(13) Baltic_Sea	93892	56072	37820	44364	49528
(14) Sea_of_Okhotsk	914275	720482	193793	782100	132175

This year’s ice extent is 288k km2 or 2.1% above average.  Only Baffin Bay and Bering have deficits to average, more than offset by surpluses elsewhere, espcially Greenland, Barents and Okhotsk seas. Many of the others are already maxed out.

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 and NH snow cover.