Arctic Ice Machine Back on

Seventeen Days in Hudson Bay are shown in the above animation.  In the lower center, Hudson Bay pushed its ice extent up to 1.24M km2, 98% of maximum.  Just to the northeast, Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay are completely frozen over, with Baffin Bay reaching down.  At the top left you can see Chukchi Sea growing ice toward Bering Strait.

The graph below shows recent progress in ice extent recovery.

From days 330 to 339, 2018 extents were flat and went below average.  Now freezing has resumed as shown in the animation above and nearing average again in the graph.  At day 342 (Dec. 8) 2018 is 540k km2 greater than 2007 and 400k km2 more than 2016.

 

The table below shows the distribution of ice in the various Arctic basins.

Region	2018342	Day 342  Average	2018-Ave.	2007342	2018-2007
(0) Northern_Hemisphere	11502523	11629820	-127297	10963264	539259
(1) Beaufort_Sea	1070498	1069593	905	1062538	7960
(2) Chukchi_Sea	790911	866476	-75565	649261	141650
(3) East_Siberian_Sea	1087137	1082340	4798	1043563	43574
(4) Laptev_Sea	897845	897834	11	897845	0
(5) Kara_Sea	783104	815899	-32796	809723	-26620
(6) Barents_Sea	109526	309994	-200468	215095	-105568
(7) Greenland_Sea	499296	567272	-67976	479113	20183
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence	868077	783249	84828	740590	127487
(9) Canadian_Archipelago	853337	853057	280	852556	781
(10) Hudson_Bay	1237622	844887	392735	948899	288723
(11) Central_Arctic	3126752	3204662	-77910	3174734	-47982
(12) Bering_Sea	82425	197632	-115207	39832	42593
(13) Baltic_Sea	2859	7895	-5037	2898	-39
(14) Sea_of_Okhotsk	90248	122364	-32116	45331	44917

 

The table shows how early is the freezing in Hudson Bay nearly offsetting slower ice buildup in Bering and Barents Seas.  It appears that the Pacific ice extents in Bering and Okhotsk Seas may again be slower than average this year.  The deficits there match the overall 2018 deficit to average.