From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

As COP28 began, Arctic ice extrent grew rapidly and by its end the Arctic was completely normal. On lower left, Chukchi sea filled in and below Bering sea started serious freezing. Lower right Hudson Bay more than doubled up to 800k km2, 2/3 of its maximum extent.  Center right Baffin Bay grew to 45% of max.

Coincidently, COP28 also triggered heavy snow bringing chaos to southern Germany causing Munich to suspend flights to anywhere, including Dubai.

The graph below shows the gains in ice extent mid-November to Mid December for 2023, the 17 year average and some other recent years, as well as SII (Sea Ice Index)

MASIE showed 2023 and 2022 tracking the 17 year average and ending very close together.  2007 fluctuated a lot, well below average in December before rising at the end.  SII tracked ~400k km2 lower most of this period, before rising to match MASIE in the last few days.

The table below shows the distribution of ice in the Arctic Ocean basins.

Region	2023349	Day 349	2023-Ave.	2007349	2023-2007
(0) Northern_Hemisphere	12104311	12162108	-57797	12000124	104187
(1) Beaufort_Sea	1070966	1070103	863	1069711	1255
(2) Chukchi_Sea	948805	934827	13978	796459	152347
(3) East_Siberian_Sea	1087137	1086539	598	1077192	9945
(4) Laptev_Sea	897845	897835	9	897845	0
(5) Kara_Sea	826874	847433	-20559	842174	-15300
(6) Barents_Sea	370088	335870	34218	285179	84909
(7) Greenland_Sea	688238	546548	141690	571916	116322
(8) Baffin_Bay_Gulf_of_St._Lawrence	819365	824803	-5438	852443	-33079
(9) Canadian_Archipelago	854860	853420	1440	852556	2304
(10) Hudson_Bay	800760	1101080	-300320	1248305	-447546
(11) Central_Arctic	3212059	3204043	8016	3192331	19728
(12) Bering_Sea	226652	236725	-10073	93340	133312
(13) Baltic_Sea	55323	11920	43403	10353	44970
(14) Sea_of_Okhotsk	231640	200090	31550	206342	25297

Note that Arctic ice now exceeds 12M km2, or 80% of last March maximum.  As shown in the table above, the main deficit to average is in Hudson Bay, likely to be overcome with the current rapid growth. Offsetting are surpluses elsewhere, mostly in Greenland sea, along with Barents and Baltic seas.