Following up on Saturday's post, I searched the NSIDC sea ice index data (since late 1978) for historical dates with comparable ice extent in the southeastern Bering Sea, and specifically reaching the north shore of Unimak Island. The only date that came up was in early March 1984. Compare the ice coverage back then with yesterday's map:
The latest NWS analysis shows a higher-resolution estimate of the state of affairs (click to enlarge):
Here's a satellite view from yesterday, courtesy of UAF. Notice that dense ice is packed along the north shore of Unimak Island, but there is more open water just to the north.
The previous day's image (Sunday) shows a magnificent clear-sky view of the Bering Sea ice cover:
For more comments, check out Rick Thoman's latest blog post, where he shows that 1976 likely had higher ice extent in the southeastern Bering Sea, based on ERA5 estimates. It will be interesting to compare the ERA5 data between the two years once the reanalysis is available for recent days.
No comments:
Post a Comment