{"id":460611,"date":"2026-08-05T09:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=460611"},"modified":"2026-08-05T09:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T16:14:10","slug":"2026-july-arctic-ice-extents-return-to-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=460611","title":{"rendered":"2026 July Arctic Ice Extents Return to Mean"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From Science Matters<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Ron Clutz<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Russian Nuclear Icebreakers on the Northern Sea Route, March 2025<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The arctic ice extents are now reported through July 2026, and as noted previously the wavy polar vortex has hampered ice formation with incursions of warmer southern air into the Arctic circle. This factor receded in May and June, with extents closing the gap with the averages. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) goes through the Russian shelf seas of Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi seas on the way to Bering Strait in Beaufort Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

As the image from July 31 shows, the Arctic Ocean core is still solid, while parts of the Eurasian NSR have open water on the left vertical side. Ice persists in Laptev (top left) and Chukchi (bottom Left).  As usual in July, Hudson Bay (bottom right) is full open water, as is Baffin Bay (middle right).  Canadian Archipelago retains considerable ice cover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chart below shows the 20-year July averages for Arctic ice extents, along with 2026, 2025 and 2007 as well as SII v.4. Note that on average during this period 2.7M km2 of ice extent is lost. MASIE tracked average throughout, slipping below mid month, before ending July with a slight surplus.  SII v.4 continues to underestimate Arctic ice extent, ending July 0.4M km2 in deficit to MASIE, and down 338k km2 for the July month average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The table below shows the distibution of ice extents on day 212 across regions of the Arctic ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Region<\/strong><\/td>2026212<\/strong><\/td>Day 212 AVe<\/strong><\/td>2026-Ave.<\/strong><\/td>2007212<\/strong><\/td>2026-2007<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
 (0) Northern_Hemisphere<\/td>6931831<\/td>6921789<\/td>10042<\/td>6344860<\/td>586971<\/td><\/tr>
 (1) Beaufort_Sea<\/td>996685<\/td>800758<\/td>195927<\/td>760576<\/td>236109<\/td><\/tr>
 (2) Chukchi_Sea<\/td>749028<\/td>558330<\/td>190698<\/td>382350<\/td>366678<\/td><\/tr>
 (3) East_Siberian_Sea<\/td>668170<\/td>748092<\/td>-79922<\/td>445385<\/td>222785<\/td><\/tr>
 (4) Laptev_Sea<\/td>508311<\/td>368784<\/td>139527<\/td>314382<\/td>193929<\/td><\/tr>
 (5) Kara_Sea<\/td>113891<\/td>160107<\/td>-46216<\/td>239232<\/td>-125340<\/td><\/tr>
 (6) Barents_Sea<\/td>36<\/td>28134<\/td>-28098<\/td>23703<\/td>-23667<\/td><\/tr>
 (7) Greenland_Sea<\/td>131468<\/td>293251<\/td>-161783<\/td>324737<\/td>-193270<\/td><\/tr>
 (8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence<\/td>107049<\/td>149072<\/td>-42023<\/td>94179<\/td>12870<\/td><\/tr>
 (9) Canadian_Archipelago<\/td>561573<\/td>543590<\/td>17983<\/td>510063<\/td>51510<\/td><\/tr>
 (10) Hudson_Bay<\/td>114812<\/td>136490<\/td>-21678<\/td>93655<\/td>21158<\/td><\/tr>
 (11) Central_Arctic<\/td>2978659<\/td>3133437<\/td>-154778<\/td>3154837<\/td>-176178<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The table shows that many regions are close to or above the 20-year average. The Eurasian shelf seas of Laptev, Chukchi and Beaufort are in surplus. The only sizeable deficits are Greenland Sea and Central Arctic. Bering and Okhotsk seas are left off the list since they are open water now as usual.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Illustration by Eleanor Lutz shows Earth\u2019s 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 ice and snow extents.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The arctic ice extents are now reported through July 2026, and as noted previously the wavy polar vortex has hampered ice formation with incursions of warmer southern air into the Arctic circle. This factor receded in May and June, with extents closing the gap with the averages. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) goes through the Russian shelf seas of Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi seas on the way to Bering Strait in Beaufort Sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":460625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691836975,691819172,691831126],"class_list":["post-460611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arctic-ice-extents","tag-arctic-ocean","tag-northern-sea-route-nsr","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1VPd","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":448745,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=448745","url_meta":{"origin":460611,"position":0},"title":"2026 May Arctic Ice Extents Closer to\u00a0Normal","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"06\/05\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The arctic ice extents are now reported through end of May 2026, and as noted previously the wavy polar vortex has hampered ice formation with incusions of warmer southern air into the Arctic circle. 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