Arctic Sea Ice Currently Taking a Hit From All SidesYes, the Arctic sea ice seems to be taking a hit from all 4 sides of the Arctic Basin at the beginning of the melt season.
Summarising recent posts above:
1) Russian side - big cracks and areas of low concentration as the ice is blown out to sea
2) Atlantic side - ice blown out into the Barents sea, where bottom melt might be expected
3) Ice transport through the Nares Strait seems to be setting up
4) Ice is being blown out through the Bering Strait and the ice already South of there is breaking up and being blown further South.
U. Bremen Ice Concentration Map Year-on-Year Comparison for 1 AprilApril 1st is one of the chosen days for Neven's useful
year-to-year comparison of the U. Bremen Arctic sea ice concentration maps.
As attached below, this comparison shows the ice this year on the Russian side - i.e. the ESS and Laptev Sea
(red arrow) to be, on the face of it, in the worst state for this date of any of the illustrated years.
CPOM/ESA Spring Ice Thickness Maps for 2011-14 and 2017The CPOM/ESA measurements of ice thickness are wrapping up for the end of this freeze season. As they are actual measurements - albeit with corrections - rather than more model-based assessments, I tend to consider that they probably give the most accurate picture of the ice thickness distribution over the Arctic Basin.
Also attached then is a gif showing their latest 28-day map compared against the years for which they publish well-calibrated Spring maps, namely 2011-14.
From these maps, the 2013 Arctic sea is seen to have been in terrible condition after the carnage of the record 2012 melt season. On the face of it, 2013 had less thick ice around this date than even this year, in contrast to the other years shown having considerably more ice than this year.
And yet 2013 turned out to be a recovery year for the sea ice, which suggests that this year also has that potential in the case that this year's upcoming melt season turns out to be mild. On the other hand, is this year's ice already being blown around more than was the case in 2013?
The bottom line from this comparison is that a mild melt season this year could still lead to a recovery in the Arctic sea ice but, on the other hand, a historic low minimum extent in 2017 is looking quite likely. It's early days yet.