On January 31, 2021, the sea-ice extent in the Arctic was 14.29 million km², roughly the same level as in the previous two years.
In terms of the long-term trend for the month, January 2021 comes in 7th place with 13.63 million km².
In January sea-ice grew at a rate of 47,518 km² per day. This represents a daily growth almost exactly the size of Lower Saxony (or Mississippi).
Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute reports that the current winter season in the Arctic is particularly influenced by the temperature anomaly, which in December produced temperatures up to 5°C above the long-term average for 1971 to 2000 in the Laptev Sea and Central Arctic, and over East Greenland and Northern Canada.
Siberia 6 to 8°C below normal
In contrast, in Siberia temperatures were on average ca. 2°C colder than usual, with a local record low of -49°C in Tomsk. This trend continued and intensified in January.
Over the Central Arctic, North Greenland, Northern Canada, and Alaska, there was a temperature anomaly of 3°C to 6°C above the long-term average.
At the same time, temperatures in Siberia were 6°C to 8°C below the long-term average.
Antarctic sea-ice development
As in the Arctic, the sea-ice extent in the Antarctic in December-2020 and January-2021 can be described as average.
In January 2021, the ice retreat in the Antarctic slowed to an average of 92,247 km² per day, resulting in a remaining extent of 3.4 million km² at the end of the month.
Compared to last year, there is significantly less ice in the northwest Weddell Sea and the eastern Ross Sea, while along the coast of Eastern Antarctica in the Amundsen Sea and in the eastern Weddell Sea, there are even larger areas of sea ice.
Read more at No Tricks Zone
Looks like the sea ice dropped from 15 to 13.5 Mil km2 in the last 38 years. If that continues unabated, it will all be gone in 342 years. Not 10 or 20 years as we keep hearing.
However, the data before 1979 is non-existent, so you can’t really look at how the ice extent grows and shrinks on a natural cycle. For instance, the 1930’s were particularly hot time. What was the sea ice extent then? We don’t really know.
Cue up the standard clips of ice calving and forming icebergs from the Greenland ice shelf. Like that doesn’t occur naturally every spring.
Not a word fro CNN and the NYT’s and the rest of the Fake News
The sea ice issue in the Arctic is the annual minimum sea ice extent in september, not the sea ice extent in january.
The data for september minimum sea ice
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/11/07/precipitous-decline-in-arctic-sea-ice-volume/
Ice Free? anyone who beleives this Global Warming/Climate Change load of malarkey need t be flown over the Arctic Region and let them see the ice that don’t come from faked pictures from Greenpeace and the NRDC