We haven't visited the Danish Meteorological Institute's Polar Portal in months.
In December 2021 the DMI changed how they reported sea ice volume (thickness x extent), our preferred measure of the health of the ice. Using volume gives a more accurate picture of how ice acts in the real world than simply using extent. As an extreme example, if the sea ice extends down to the equator but is only one inch thick it is not going to matter for albedo or evaporation. It will break up with a gentle breeze and melt or sublimate with a couple sunny days. Volume on the other hand... well, just think ice cubes versus shaved ice for the melt physics.
The DMI said their change was applied to all prior years but a comparison of presentations from ten and twenty years ago shows anomalies in the new presentation vs historical.
And I still haven't figured-out why that is.
Be all that as it may be, the ice in the Bering Sea and Bering Strait (top center on this map), and the Chukchi and Siberian Seas. was thick and unlike some years in the last decade locked solidly to the Russian shore, upper right on the map.
What all this means is that storms coming up from the Pacific and crossing the Polar ice cap did not flush massive amounts of ice through the Fram Strait on the other side of the Arctic basin between Greenland and Svalbard. From the Danish Meteorological Institute:
Here is the graph of volume over the last five years, current year in black, baseline mean in dark gray and 1 standard deviation above and below the average in light gray:
As can be seen, by this measure the ice is in the second best condition it's been in for the last five years and actually a decade if we look at the truly horrible 2012 melt season:
Over two million cubic kilometers more volume in 2022 vs 2012.
Finally, though it isn't as helpful for understanding the physics of the ice cap, here is the more popular representation of the state of the ice, area and extent from NOAA.
Note that the area of the ice cap is at its highest in twelve years (red line) and extent is third highest. Cross your fingers that no storms push that 2.5 to 3.5 meter-thick ice out through the Fram Strait and in 6 - 7 weeks when the melt season ends there will be a nice multi-year-ice base to build upon.
Now for an icy beverage.
