The 2022/2023 freezing season

[oren]

An AMSR2 animation of sea ice concentration and movement in the central Arctic, courtesy of the Alfred Wegener institute (AWI). More information available in the AWI thread.
Click to animate and click again for maximum resolution.
Source is mirrored on https://seaice.de/AMSR2_Central_Arctic_SIC-LEADS.gif

Adding a chart of total AMSR2 area according to AWI (current year in white), source https://sites.google.com/view/sea-ice/startseite

And DMI temps N of 80, for what it's worth.

[gerontocrat]

Strong winds over at least the next 5 days into the Barents, generally above average temperatures, plus some snow and some rain. I think Barents sea ice losses may well stall again.

click images to enlarge

[VeliAlbertKallio]

Freezing temperature days gone missing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64485092 Arctic -78C windchill gone into bushes. 

[Eco-Author]

Squash Zone winds and a low Nullschool now pegs at the mid 950s with 70-90km winds into fram for days.... Seems to be a quite serious event??  How are Fram exports going?

[gerontocrat]

Impressive winds from the North Atlantic into the Barents Sea in the next few days .

[VeliAlbertKallio]

The winds climbing over Norway mountains may produce in these conditions Fohn wind as the air descends and compresses beyond Norway, this reduces dissipation of heat further south and releases it back as air compresses back at sea level beyond Norway. Some sea regions could see a toaster beside the effect of winds and more heat stored and transmitted into seas.

Impressive winds from the North Atlantic into the Barents Sea in the next few days .

[binntho]

I've rarely seen such a clear conveyer of hot air from the subtropics up into the Arctic. Image is Nullschool at the time of viewing (2023-02-07 07:00 UTC), i.e. not a prediction.

VeliAlbertKaleo's Föhn effect can be seen over northern Scandinavia.

The low pressure north of Svalbard is 945 hPa according to Nullschool (GFS at 948), with windspeeds up to 80 km/h (22 m/s - if I remember correctly, serious upwelling and Ekman pumping starts at around 20 m/s). Wonder what this is doing to the ice ... nothing good I guess.

PS the image looks a lot better with a click.

PPS GFS has the low at 945 hPa a bit later in the day, and at 938 after 2 days.

[Jim Hunt]

According to the CMC the Fram cyclone was down to 946 hPa MSLP at 06:00 UTC this morning:

P.S. CMC 12Z synopsis came in at 948 hPa

[jdallen]

According to the CMC the Fram cyclone was down to 946 hPa MSLP at 06:00 UTC this morning:

P.S. CMC 12Z synopsis came in at 948 hPa

Serious heat pump at work, drawing moisture and heat north from the North Atlantic.   This isn't melting stuff as much as the imported heat is being substituted for heat which otherwise would have radiated out of the atmosphere from the Arctic ocean.

[Jim Hunt]

Serious heat pump at work, drawing moisture and heat north from the North Atlantic.

The temperature in Svalbard rose above zero briefly during the passage of the cyclone.

What's more the pressure there is falling once again:

[johnm33]

Copernicus has the current speed at 1.2mps
That suggests a lot of water passing over Barents towards Laptev and a quickening of flow towards Fram from that direction.

[nadir]

Copernicus has the current speed at 1.2mps
That suggests a lot of water passing over Barents towards Laptev and a quickening of flow towards Fram from that direction.

Does this mean that we can expect a delayed effect of this flow over Laptev in Spring/Summer?

[Jim Hunt]

It seems GFS was unduly pessimistic.

The CMC have concluded that the latest Fram Strait cyclone bottomed out at 945 hPa MSLP at 0Z this morning:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2023/02/facts-about-the-arctic-in-february-2023/#comment-667883

[jdallen]

It seems GFS was unduly pessimistic.

The CMC have concluded that the latest Fram Strait cyclone bottomed out at 945 hPa MSLP at 0Z this morning:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2023/02/facts-about-the-arctic-in-february-2023/#comment-667883

... with a 1035 high squatting on top of the Greenland ice cap.

Can we say "gradient"?   Yup.  A bit.  Near hurricane force or better in the Fram blowing through the gap it would appear.

[oren]

An AMSR2 animation of sea ice concentration and movement in the central Arctic, courtesy of the Alfred Wegener institute (AWI). More information available in the AWI thread.
Click to animate and click again for maximum resolution.
Source is mirrored on https://seaice.de/AMSR2_Central_Arctic_SIC-LEADS.gif

Adding a chart of total AMSR2 area according to AWI (current year in white), source https://sites.google.com/view/sea-ice/startseite
And of the Barents area, the usual winter wildcard.

And DMI temps N of 80, for what it's worth.

[johnm33]

Copernicus has the current speed at 1.2mps
That suggests a lot of water passing over Barents towards Laptev and a quickening of flow towards Fram from that direction.

Does this mean that we can expect a delayed effect of this flow over Laptev in Spring/Summer?

Since the inputs are so similar I've never been able to figure out quite how long any particular surge takes or which is responsible for what. My guess is that the pressure exerted by any flow onto the Barents shelf is felt in Laptev within 15 days, the water takes longer to get there and the added inertia takes even longer to fade into background effects, so maybe fades out before summer.
Imo the wind assist meant more of the potential energy, from the 170kph difference in tangential surface speed between 60+70degN will be expressed as eastward movement once on the shelf and that's where the longer term effects will be. The displacement of ice north around FJ land may be a result of other waters forced north by this accelerated ingress?

[gerontocrat]

On the Atlantic Front

The  AMSR2 animation posted by Oren shows a lot of ice exiting the Kara into the central arctic between FJL and Severnaya Zemlya island. What much of it seems to do is flow to the Greenland sea via the Fram well offshore from Greenland, and being from the Kara is mostly first year ice, and therefore relatively thin. 

At the same time North of Greenland ice moves west to east to the Fram and enters the Greenland sea close to the Greenland shore. This surely is likely to be thicker ice.

This seems to me to mean the Greenland sea has thin ice well offshore exposed to warmer ocean water that will melt quickly; while close to shore there is thicker ice kept cold by Greenland's ice and snow, that will resist melt.

GFS forecasts indicate that the warmth heading into the Barents from the North Atlantic will continue and increase over the next few days (to the 16th Feb?). I, for one, expect further significant sea ice losses in the Barents over these days, that may also affect the eastern edge of the Central Arctic and the Kara sea (where offshore winds from Russia look likely to occur).
gif attached

After that the forecasted SSW means all bets are off? Maybe there are already early signs of a change underway in the 10 and 30 hPa temperatures. See images attached

[Jim Hunt]

Talking of the Atlantic front, the recent cyclones seem to have already had a significant effect:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2023/02/facts-about-the-arctic-in-february-2023/#Feb-11

Combined with the record low minimum in the Antarctic, the sudden drop in Arctic extent has also created a record low global minimum JAXA extent.

[Click twice to animate and enlarge]

[Eco-Author]

We are neck and neck with the outlier lower years (500k+ 2020 and neck and neck with 2017 after such a warm end to 16).  Any shots at lower than 2012 minimums will likely have to come from the Atlantic front pushing further north and with more warmth to come, record low ice, and at the end of the season, we may well see quick retreats in Kara and Barents challenging records this year... Solar activity and El Nino seeming to be as strong of an effect as they themselves can be...  All these really low 940mb~ systems coming in I started to note more of last year... NOW EVERY WEEK we are seeing really severe storms and the 500mb jet had been often looking like the 250mb level...  Even the storm about to hit NZ at a CAT 3 is rare - It's like the climate is superchanged and spining out of control all over.

[gerontocrat]

There is already an effect on the Central Arctic Region along the Atlantic Front. Recent strong sea ice gains have been replaced by steep losses. Given that the data is the 5-day trailing average the current sea ice area and extent losses are under-reported and should continue for a good few days yet, espcially given warmth (air and ocean) influx should continue for a few days.

In contrast the opposite effect is seen in the Greenland sea, where sea ice gains have replaced sea ice loss. Presumably decreases and then increases in Fram ice export are part of the cause in both regions.

graphs attached, click to enlarge

[interstitial]

We are neck and neck with the outlier lower years (500k+ 2020 and neck and neck with 2017 after such a warm end to 16).  Any shots at lower than 2012 minimums will likely have to come from the Atlantic front pushing further north and with more warmth to come, record low ice, and at the end of the season, we may well see quick retreats in Kara and Barents challenging records this year... Solar activity and El Nino seeming to be as strong of an effect as they themselves can be...  All these really low 940mb~ systems coming in I started to note more of last year... NOW EVERY WEEK we are seeing really severe storms and the 500mb jet had been often looking like the 250mb level...  Even the storm about to hit NZ at a CAT 3 is rare - It's like the climate is superchanged and spining out of control all over.

Once again detailed analysis previously done and reported on this site on the subject indicates there is no correlation between a low maximum and a low minimum later that year. It may be that a low maximum allows more heat to escape the ocean during winter but as far as I know the reason has not been definitively established. Please refrain from implying that a low maximum will lead to a low minimum in the future.

[johnm33]

Gero

At the same time North of Greenland ice moves west to east to the Fram and enters the Greenland sea close to the Greenland shore. This surely is likely to be thicker ice.

Maybe maybe not, what I think happens is that the ice expands from it's centre, so once it's south of the pole towards FJL it's lack of inertia causes it to rotate westwards. Previously this meant it would rotate into the northernmost tip of Greenland or the shortest distance to the pole on Ellesmere, here it would back up and thicken and accumulate. Now it meets a current flowing out from the 'Canadian' side and no matter what the wind does it moves towards Fram in that current. I think now the thickest ice accumulates in the ESS where it compresses against the NSI. Some may form in Laptev but that is subject to much more disruption from incoming Atl. waters.

[I’M IN LOVE WITH A RAGER]

We are neck and neck with the outlier lower years (500k+ 2020 and neck and neck with 2017 after such a warm end to 16).  Any shots at lower than 2012 minimums will likely have to come from the Atlantic front pushing further north and with more warmth to come, record low ice, and at the end of the season, we may well see quick retreats in Kara and Barents challenging records this year... Solar activity and El Nino seeming to be as strong of an effect as they themselves can be...  All these really low 940mb~ systems coming in I started to note more of last year... NOW EVERY WEEK we are seeing really severe storms and the 500mb jet had been often looking like the 250mb level...  Even the storm about to hit NZ at a CAT 3 is rare - It's like the climate is superchanged and spining out of control all over.

Once again detailed analysis previously done and reported on this site on the subject indicates there is no correlation between a low maximum and a low minimum later that year. It may be that a low maximum allows more heat to escape the ocean during winter but as far as I know the reason has not been definitively established. Please refrain from implying that a low maximum will lead to a low minimum in the future.

This may be true for now, but I would think it is plausible that at some point along the trend of decline towards an ice-free Arctic summer, such a correlation may begin to develop. Not the gravest sin to speculate about this topic imo, though the historical trend is certainly still important to note.

[oren]

Indeed there is no significant correlation between winter max and summer min, though I think it gives a further dice roll, or IOW a somewhat increased risk of a downside result.

[interstitial]

We are neck and neck with the outlier lower years (500k+ 2020 and neck and neck with 2017 after such a warm end to 16).  Any shots at lower than 2012 minimums will likely have to come from the Atlantic front pushing further north and with more warmth to come, record low ice, and at the end of the season, we may well see quick retreats in Kara and Barents challenging records this year... Solar activity and El Nino seeming to be as strong of an effect as they themselves can be...  All these really low 940mb~ systems coming in I started to note more of last year... NOW EVERY WEEK we are seeing really severe storms and the 500mb jet had been often looking like the 250mb level...  Even the storm about to hit NZ at a CAT 3 is rare - It's like the climate is superchanged and spining out of control all over.

Once again detailed analysis previously done and reported on this site on the subject indicates there is no correlation between a low maximum and a low minimum later that year. It may be that a low maximum allows more heat to escape the ocean during winter but as far as I know the reason has not been definitively established. Please refrain from implying that a low maximum will lead to a low minimum in the future.

This may be true for now, but I would think it is plausible that at some point along the trend of decline towards an ice-free Arctic summer, such a correlation may begin to develop. Not the gravest sin to speculate about this topic imo, though the historical trend is certainly still important to note.

Despite evidence that it is not true you want too ..
Is it unreasonable too discourage the repetition of incorrect assumptions supported by data?

[interstitial]

Indeed there is no significant correlation between winter max and summer min, though I think it gives a further dice roll, or IOW a somewhat increased risk of a downside result.

I find it interesting that no one wants to reexamine their assumptions when the data indicates something else.

[Rodius]

Indeed there is no significant correlation between winter max and summer min, though I think it gives a further dice roll, or IOW a somewhat increased risk of a downside result.

I find it interesting that no one wants to reexamine their assumptions when the data indicates something else.

The data doesn't show a correlation.
But it is understandable why people correlate a low max with a low min, even though historically there is no correlation.

In saying that, nature does have a horrible habit of changing states rapidly and in an unpredictable manner.

Given the changing of state in the Artic, it wouldnt be overly surprising to see a record low min this year. But I wouldn't put money on it because of the lack of correlation in the data. IN saying that, the state of the ice doesn't resemble that from even 20 years ago, and the area data doesn't reflect the volume or thickness.

If we are to consider other data points, and how ice can have a large area but a low volume, it isn't without merit to think a low max area could easily become a record minimum in the same year.

[I’M IN LOVE WITH A RAGER]

I think Oren made a very good point with the “further dice roll” analogy. So many factors are involved with each freeze/melt cycle that it would be difficult to pair any two individual values together and demonstrate causation, since variables like weather, currents, ENSO and even the sun can have effects on realized warming and energy delivered to the basin. Each of these factors and more may play a partial role individually, resulting in many lurking variables when examined as a full picture. I think it would be unwise to entirely dismiss the current state of the ice going into the melt season, since with less total area and extent in the basin, clearly less ice needs to melt total to reach the same lows as other years starting with 100s of thousands of km^2 more. Ice has a high enthalpy of fusion, so physics wise, it does make a big difference in energy required, even if a strong relationship has not been demonstrated in the past. I would not suspect that the first BOE year comes from an above average winter maximum, unless some other truly crazy factors simultaneously align.

[Linus]

Going back to Oren’s posted Central Arctic gif for today, I am struck by the speed and volume of ice headed out of the Kara throughout the timeframe. How much upwelling occurs when such a large area of ice moves so quickly in one direction for so many days? Is there a potential for mixing with deeper, warmer waters to occur or is the effect negligible overall?

[nadir]

Indeed there is no significant correlation between winter max and summer min, though I think it gives a further dice roll, or IOW a somewhat increased risk of a downside result.

“A somewhat increased risk of a downside result” should show up as a correlation, unless the increased risk is insignificant compared to the real melting caused by weather, weather, or weather.

[interstitial]

I think a distinction needs to be made here.
Global warming will continue to lead to lower maximums and lower minimums of that there is evidence. It may even be that a year with a low maximum ends up with a low minimum. That may well happen.
The point here is the low maximum is not likely to predict one. I would like to understand what the data is telling us not looking for it to confirm some assumption I have.
Thin ice forms readily in the arctic. It can thicken or remain relatively thin. The wind can blow and bunch it up exposing surface water which can then freeze readily. With currents and many other factors at play the surface area or extent miss a significant portion of how weak or strong the ice is in any given year. As the ice gets thinner I think its usefulness as an indicator of the state of the ice declines significantly.
We follow the extent/area because it is relatively easy to track and historically gives us some guidepost on how things are going in the arctic but its ability to represent how the arctic is doing appears to be diminishing because young thin ice has the same area/extent as new or old thick ice.

[interstitial]

Indeed there is no significant correlation between winter max and summer min, though I think it gives a further dice roll, or IOW a somewhat increased risk of a downside result.

“A somewhat increased risk of a downside result” should show up as a correlation, unless the increased risk is insignificant compared to the real melting caused by weather, weather, or weather.

You said it better than I did.

[oren]

Interstitial I think your points are spot on. The data is telling us there is no correlation and no increased risk. In fact 2012 had a high max and the lowest min. And indeed ice area/extent are readily trackable but do not necessarily provide the actual state of the ice. Volume this year is not particularly low, which further hints that the situation is not extreme or indicative of trouble ahead. Even 2017 which began with very low volume ended up nowhere during September.
Also bear in mind that while the min is set solely in the High Arctic and the Greenland Sea, the max is usually set by the peripherals and especially the large and open ended Barents, Baffin, Bering and Okhotsk, which further reduces the causation between max and min.

OTOH and this is where I speculate, not calculate. The only peripheral region which is well connected and IMHO can have a significant impact on summer behavior is the Barents and its interfaces with the Kara and CAB. Ending the winter with a very low and thin Barents as is happening this year can lead to early melt in the adjacent regions, and enable higher mixing of the surface layer and increased salinity. So this is one dice roll I am looking at.
In addition, we do not have a long record of freak years, and I suspect low probability events are not all covered by the available data. Especially as the high variability of spring and summer weather drowns out possible smaller effects.
Some of this discussion can take place in longer term threads, but in general I am not ruling out a possible small effect of winter max conditions on summer min results, despite the data not showing this effect.

[jdallen]

Oren et. al...

Indeed.  I've been beating on the available arctic data for the better part of a decade, and I have found no correlation in any of the arctic data (greater than at most 60 days) that gives us a leading indicator for sea ice minimums.

I've found some *hints* in data around total arctic and global enthalpy - the total heat in the system year over year - and possibly in some of the global weather data - but I have yet to weave together anything which conclusively demonstrates any kind of predictable relationship.

It may be there is *no* year over year correlation, and that timescale is simply too granular; it is too chaotic and defiant of any sort of predictability.  This is keenly frustrating but may be the reality we face in trying to understand the changes we are seeing. 

There is this one thing for certain, chiseled literally in stone; the CO2 content of the atmosphere is inexorably associated with higher global temperatures and a general retreat of global glaciation and the establishment of equitable climate, at least in the northern hemisphere.

That, in my estimation, is what we have, until I or someone smarter than I am finds a magic bullet.

[binntho]

The Arctic has a very bad annual memory - min one year has no correlation with next year, max has no correlation with min etc. Decadal memory is presumably better, a minimum like 2012 would not have happened in 1992. And repeated sub-4m minimums are a result of the general, decadal, state of  the ice.

In trying to understand (and predict) what happens in a particular melt year, we are up against a multitude of factors, big and small, and more or less random. The state of the ice at maximum is one such factor, and as oren explains above, a rather insignificant one in the longer run (so far). The points made by jdallen above are also very appropriate. It is very difficult to deny any causality, from a logical point of view, but it is swamped by other factors and thus has near-nil predictive value.

But things are changing and I agree with oren that the state of the Barents at max is likely quite significant, probably more significant than the actual maximum extent reached.

Just to remind us all of how fast things are changing - atmospheric rivers may have ben the direct cause of as much as one third of ice decline Barents, Kara and Central Arctic Seas of the last 50 years. This is a major and growing factor and mostly invisible to us. And the weaker the Barents, the stronger the effects.

See Glen Koehler's post in the What's new in the Arctic" thread.

[gerontocrat]

There is a correlation between the yearly maximum and yearly total melt, but not one of cause and effect. I believe the cause is AGW + Arctic Amplification.

I have written a post for the Freeform season chatter & light commentary thread on this. See https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?topic=2274.msg359375#msg359375

However, when considering the Barents, the high loss of winter sea ice on the one hand creates more open water which in turn increases heat loss from the ocean but reduces the energy required to melt the remaining ice. The question is "which is greater?". This will have an impact on how quickly and early sea ice loss in the melting season happens, which in turn influences melt in the Kara and Central Arctic.

This could be of more than academic interest this year with the imminent transition to ENSO neutral and the increasing possibility of an El Nino later in the year- see Barents graphs attached

[binntho]

Great work as always, gero, very informative. In the last graph above, has the yellow line (nov-dec-jan) already been extended to cover this freezing season?

[NotaDenier]

Can someone point out where the data is for the min/max correlation? What is its R2 value? Was there any step change in the correlation starting with the 2007 year?

[baltic dweller]

Isn't the elephant in the room for this freezing season the concentrated stretch of thick ice between Severna Zemlya and the north-eastern edge of Greenland which seemed to have been pushed back into the CAB from the Barents by the battering lows which reduced the extent at the Atlantic edge?
Won't this excess ice cause a slow melt in the spring-summer?

[gerontocrat]

Can someone point out where the data is for the min/max correlation? What is its R2 value? Was there any step change in the correlation starting with the 2007 year?

As I wrote in the earlier post above

"I have written a post for the Freeform season chatter & light commentary thread on this. See https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?topic=2274.msg359375#msg359375 "

click and it is all there.

[NotaDenier]

Can someone point out where the data is for the min/max correlation? What is its R2 value? Was there any step change in the correlation starting with the 2007 year?

As I wrote in the earlier post above

"I have written a post for the Freeform season chatter & light commentary thread on this. See https://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php?topic=2274.msg359375#msg359375 "

Hey Gero I had read your insomnia post . (Sorry to hear you could not sleep).

You stated it was a comparison of maximum extent to ice loss. I was looking for a comparison of maximum extent to minimum extent. I don’t think the two things are exactly the same? Maybe I’m wrong? I appreciate your statistical skill and your massive contributions to the forum. Others had spoke of max vs min trend line like it was common knowledge I just down remember seeing such a comparison before.

[Jim Hunt]

Won't this excess ice cause a slow melt in the spring-summer?

However note also the anomalously thick ice queuing up for the Fram exit:

https://GreatWhiteCon.info/2023/02/facts-about-the-arctic-in-february-2023/

Here's a "non-anomalous" map:

[nadir]

Iirc Barents in February 2014 was pretty low or average, only to rebound spectacularly and end up very high in April/May, and remaining very high for the rest of the melting season until October, I think. I’d be wary of speculating much until we get into spring at least.

[gerontocrat]

Great work as always, gero, very informative. In the last graph above, has the yellow line (nov-dec-jan) already been extended to cover this freezing season?

The yellow line includes the January of the following year. i.e. in 2022 it is Nov & Dec 2022 & January '23. Had to be that way as the max occurring around middle March means Feb March April are the maximum 3 months and I wanted to split the year into 3 month periods. Note also that for open water graphs I use NSIDC AREA  data to calculate the open water percentage.

[jdallen]

Iirc Barents in February 2014 was pretty low or average, only to rebound spectacularly and end up very high in April/May, and remaining very high for the rest of the melting season until October, I think. I’d be wary of speculating much until we get into spring at least.

Too much has changed (already) for us to be able to extrapolate from even just 8 years ago. For example, heat content in the top 2000m of the worlds oceans has risen by something like 8x10^22 Joules in this time.
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/global-ocean-heat-content/
Appearances at first glance are also deceiving; 2014 at this stage had nearly 2000km3 more volume than we have currently.

[nadir]

So much has changed in eight years? Actually my impression is so little has changed compared to our expectations back then, but let’s leave it at that…

It still can get much colder over the Barents sea from here to May is all I say.

[Jim Hunt]

2014 at this stage had nearly 2000km3 more volume than we have currently.

Perhaps depending on the source of your numbers?

[The Walrus]

Can someone point out where the data is for the min/max correlation? What is its R2 value? Was there any step change in the correlation starting with the 2007 year?

There is an overall correlation between the annual maximum and minimum as shown in the first graph below.  The R2 is a respectable 0.65.  However, much of that can be attributed to the general decline in both the max and min over the past half century, as shown in the second graph.

As can be seen, the annual minimum started declining much faster than the maximum around 1998.  The correlation between the winter maximum and summer minimum prior to then was rather poor (R2=0.09).  After the steep decline in the minimum extent, the correlation between the max and min from 2005 to date is nonexistent, as shown in the final graph. 

Since 1979, both the annual mximum and minimum have declined, and to quote interstitiual, "Global warming will continue to lead to lower maximums and lower minimums of that there is evidence" and to repeat what oren said earlier, "there is no significant correlation between winter max and summer min."  Max and min are both dependent on warming, but largely independent of each other.

[nadir]

Can someone point out where the data is for the min/max correlation? What is its R2 value? Was there any step change in the correlation starting with the 2007 year?

[…]

Max and min are both dependent on warming, but largely independent of each other.

That’s my perception too, thanks for the data.

[gerontocrat]

2014 at this stage had nearly 2000km3 more volume than we have currently.

Perhaps depending on the source of your numbers?

Some PIOMAS Volume Numbers in KM3 as at 31 January (latest data for 2023)

                      2023          2014
Total Arctic    18,046     18,935   2023 ranking at 31 Jan is 6th lowest in the satellite record

Barents Sea       167          314   2023 ranking at 31 Jan is 5th lowest in the satellite record

i.e. Winter sea ice volume in the Barents Sea in 2023 is in a lot worse shape than in 2014. That does not mean to say it is guaranteed to stay that way, especially with a major SSW forecasted to arrive in the next few days with after-effects that may last several weeks.