All climate models and doomed predictions of Ice – Free Arctic had been wrong.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

The animation shows the rapid refreezing of Arctic ice from September 30 to yesterday October 9.  Despite much ado about September minimums, in fact the ice recovers quickly from its annual low extent.  As of yesterday, Day 282, this year has again exceeded the 17 year average.

Previous post:  2023 September Arctic Outlook and Results Not Scary

The graph above shows the monthly averages for September Arctic ice extents including 2023 compared to previous years back to 2007.  This year is slightly below the 17 year average of 4.63M km2;  MASIE shows 4.43M and SII shows 4.37.  For comparison the 2007 September values were 4.30M for MASIE and 4.27M for SII.  The predictions below refer to the SII value.

The August median forecasted value for pan-Arctic September sea-ice extent is 4.60 million square kilometers with interquartile values of 4.35 and 4.80 million square kilometers, while individual forecasts range from 2.88 to 5.47 million square kilometers. We note that the lowest two forecasts predict a new record September sea-ice extent value (current record is September 2012, with a sea-ice extent of 3.57 million square kilometers), but these forecasts are outliers relative to the other contributions.

These are predictions for the September 2023 monthly average ice extent as reported by NOAA Sea Ice Index (SII). This post provides a look at the 2023 Year To Date (YTD) based on monthly averages comparing MASIE and SII datasets. (17 year average is 2006 to 2022 inclusive).

The graph puts 2023 into recent historical perspective. Note how 2023 was slightly below the 17-year average for the first 5 months, then recovered to match average in May and has maintained or exceeded average through August. September was below average slightly and above 2007. The outlier 2012 provided the highest March maximum as well as the lowest September minimum, coinciding with the Great Arctic Cyclone that year.  2007 began the period with the lowest minimum except for 2012.  SII 2023 was running below MASIE except for May/June and is currently just below MASIE and above 2007 and 2012.

The table below provides the numbers for comparisons (all are M km2)

Monthly	MASIE 2023	SII 2023	MASIE -SII	MASIE 2023-17 YR AVE	SII 2023-17 YR AVE	MASIE 2023-2007
Jan	13.579	13.347	0.232	-0.207	-0.250	-0.183
Feb	14.481	14.177	0.304	-0.207	-0.292	-0.171
Mar	14.655	14.440	0.215	-0.212	-0.248	0.032
Apr	13.979	13.992	-0.013	-0.120	-0.025	0.283
May	11.866	12.159	-0.293	-0.742	-0.492	-0.561
June	11.044	10.963	0.081	0.242	0.099	0.218
July	8.431	8.183	0.248	0.152	0.150	0.439
Aug	5.825	5.561	0.264	-0.062	-0.083	0.241
Sept	4.430	4.371	0.059	-0.285	-0.360	0.132

The first two columns are the 2023 YTD shown by MASIE and SII, with the MASIE surpluses in column three.  Column four shows MASIE 2023 compared to MASIE 17 year average, while column five shows SII 2023 compared to SII 17 year average.  YTD September both MASIE and SII ~300k km2 below average. The last column shows MASIE 2023 holding a September surplus of 132k km2 over 2007.

Summary and Update

The experts involved in SIPN were expecting SII 2023 September to be higher than 2007 and somewhat lower than 2022.  The way it came out MASIE September was 285k km2 below average and 132 above 2007.  The Chart below shows the October ice recovery is well under way, now exceeding the average. 

The table shows Day 282 (October 9) ice extents for NH overall and the regions, comparing 2023 to average and several years.

Region	2023282	Day 282	2023-Ave.	2007282	2023-2007
(0) Northern_Hemisphere	5663965	5537300	126665	4794178	869787
(1) Beaufort_Sea	473472	641789	-168317	639935	-166464
(2) Chukchi_Sea	323215	255140	68075	14061	309154
(3) East_Siberian_Sea	257832	407159	-149327	35	257797
(4) Laptev_Sea	471460	252642	218818	340943	130518
(5) Kara_Sea	117555	66310	51245	82407	35148
(6) Barents_Sea	29729	22272	7457	12933	16796
(7) Greenland_Sea	424861	289801	135061	400747	24115
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence	90677	67480	23197	73481	17195
(9) Canadian_Archipelago	305206	485343	-180137	424350	-119144
(10) Hudson_Bay	104	5030	-4926	4163	-4059
(11) Central_Arctic	3167292	3043182	124110	2799828	367464

On Day 282 Arctic ice was 127k km2 above average and nearly 870k km2 above 2007. The major deficits were in Beaufort, East Siberian seas and Canadian Archipelago.  They were more than offset by surpluses in Laptev, Greenland sea and Central Arctic as well as smaller surpluses elsewhere.  From previous years we can expect that October 2023 will gain more than 3M km2 of ice extent over the ending extent in September.