Today, I checked the 23 May MODIS tiles against those I collected in CAD on 29 May last year. This year, weather imposed an impressive swath of meltponding over the American side of the Arctic. In fact, meltponding occurs over all of Chukchi Sea.
It extends more than 400 km N of Barrow (the red circle), into the adjacent parts of the CAB ( the blue lines indicate the limits of Beaufort and Chukchi Seas). To the West, the swath enters the East Siberian Sea N of Ostrov Wrangelj. To the East, it enters the CAA into Coronation Gulf, Prince of Wales Strait and even into McClure Strait.
Although this meltponding event is, within the limits of my memory, unique for the time of the year, it doesn’t mean the course to a new minimum record is set. Compared to last year, there’s considerably less open water on the Siberian side. Last year, constant Southerly winds created a large polynia all along the Siberian fast ice, which laid the basis for the “Laptev Bite” later that year. This time, cool anomalies prevented the Sib side for an early melt start.
Exception is the Kara Sea, where ice extent rapidly declines and floes are dispersed. In fact, most of the ice in the Southern Kara will soon be isolated from the main pack. Near Baydaratskaya Bay, in the South, there’s widespread meltponding visible.
For 2015 to stay in the race, an important contribution is necessary from Hudson and Baffin Bay, which usually open up during June. The same goes for the Laptev. ECMWF doesn’t indicate speedy Hudson Bay melt circumstances. It only hints at further anomalous warmth on the Bering side, this time aligned over the East Sib Sea.
Nothing seems set yet, so I’ll wait at least till the end of June. I have much more analysis on earlier years around that date.