Arctic Sea Ice Extent, Area, and Volume

[bluewave]

The big story in the Arctic last few summers has been the record warmth in the Kara and Barents seas areas with the very low sea ice extent there.

 

https://alaskaclimate.substack.com/p/august-2025-arctic-sea-ice

Regional Sea Ice

 

The Atlantic side of the Arctic has had very low ice extent all summer, with the Barents and Kara Seas almost entirely open water for much of late July and August. The pack ice edge at the end of August was near 82N, 200 km or more north of the Svalbard and Franz Josef Land archipelagos. 

The climate impacts of the lack of ice were dramatic. The only real-time climate station in Franz Josef Land, Polargmo Im. E. T. Krenkelja on Heiss Island at 80.6N, did not record a temperature below freezing in August. At Wiese (Vize) Island, a small island in the northernmost Kara Sea at 79.5N, the temperature has remained above freezing since July 16 (47 days as of September 2). Last summer, the longest freeze-free period there was 11 days and in summer 2023 the longest was only 4 days. 

On the Pacific side of the North Pole, ice loss in the Beaufort Sea increased during August, but plenty of ice remained at the end of the month in the eastern part of the basin. The Northern Sea Route, along the north coast of Russia, was open to most vessels by late August. The Northwest Passage, connecting Canadian waters with the Bering Strait, was close to being open for non ice-hardened traffic, but mobile areas of higher concentration ice persisted at the end of August in Amundsen Gulf, the southeastern-most portion of Beaufort Sea.

[FPizz]