Average sea ice for March is the metric used for comparisons with previous winters – Watts Up With That?
Dr. Susan Crockford
Average sea ice cover at the end of the march is the index used to compare ‘winter’ ice with previous years or decades, not a date ‘most’ ice days. This year, March ended with 14.6 square meters of sea ice, most of which (but not all) are important polar bear habitats. The tape chart shows this below.
But note that the ice over Hudson Bay, a nearly enclosed sea used by thousands of polar bears at this time of year, tends to continue to thicken from March to May: these two charts for 2020 shows medium green becoming dark green, indicating Ice > 1.2 m thickeven if some open water areas appear.
Sea ice cover on March 31, 2022
Ice levelvia NSIDC
2022 compared to previous yearsbelow:
To keep the chart above in perspective (since the scale looks like a big decline), see the chart below which shows the range for March vs. September to 2021
Ice concentration (> 50%), through University of Bremen
Degree and thickness of Canadian sea ice, via CIS
overall
Western Canada, ice color decoder glossary this
Hudson Bay
Eastern Canada
East coast
Chukchi / Bering Seavia Alaska Sea Ice Show
Barents Sea / Greenland / Karavia Norwegian Ice Service
Close-up of Svalbard
Close-up of Southern Greenland / Davis Strait, via NSIDC
Overall, there’s nothing spectacular about the change from a few years ago: there’s still plenty of ice for polar bears to hunt for newborn seals, which they will now in most areas.
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