November 29th, 2020: Arctic sea ice extent ***********************
December 2, 2020: Persistently peculiar
Entering December, which is the start of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, sea ice extent remains far below average, dominated by the lack of ice on both the Pacific and Atlantic sides of the Arctic Ocean. As was the case for October, air temperatures averaged for November were well above average over much of the Arctic Ocean, notably over open water areas. Averaged for the month, total ice extent for November 2020 was the second lowest in the satellite record.
Overview of conditions: As reported in our previous post, sea ice extent averaged for October 2020 was the lowest in the satellite record. While extent increased through November as part of the annual cycle of autumn and winter growth, the November average extent of 8.99 million square kilometers (3.47 million square miles), ended up as second lowest in the satellite record for the month, just above 2016. This was 1.71 million square kilometers (660,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average and 330,000 square kilometers (127,000 square miles) above the record low of November 2016. Entering December, extent remains especially low over both the Barents and Kara Seas on the Atlantic side and the Chukchi Sea on the Pacific side of the Arctic Ocean.
Image courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder (https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/). Data source see http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/about-the-data/
