Sea Ice Update

I'm in a busy stretch for travel and work at the moment, so posts may be light and sporadic for a few weeks.

But here's a quick update on Bering Sea ice, which appears to have reached its seasonal maximum on March 19, according to NSIDC ice extent data.  The peak of 734,000 km² is about 14% below the 1991-2020 median value for the seasonal peak, although the daily values have been generally quite close to the climatological daily median for the latter part of the winter: compare the black and orange lines in the figure below.

The shortfall of the seasonal peak value reflects the fact that we never saw a significant surge above normal, whereas a typical winter would tend to see such an event as a result of subseasonal variability.

Given that January-February temperatures were above the 1991-2020 normal across most of the Bering Sea (at least according to ERA5), it's actually surprising that the sea ice managed to reach near-normal levels by the end of February.

Here's the NWS ice analysis for March 18, when low-concentration ice just about reached St Paul Island:

Last winter the ice did not reach St Paul Island, but it did in 2022, when ice coverage was the most abundant since 2013.