Snow White

@greatwhitecon.info

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Putting the Arctic sea ice record straight

A two frame high resolution animation of recent events at Jakobshavn Isbrae, courtesy of Espen Olsen at the Arctic Sea Ice Forum. The animation compares the position of the glacier’s calving front during the previous record retreat in August 2015 with its position on July 19th 2026.
A “false colour” image of an Arctic cyclone centred over the Laptev Sea on June 16th 2026, from the VIIRS instrument on the Suomi satellite
A map of Arctic sea ice thickness on January 31st 2026, based on the PIOMAS model developed by the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington.
"Donald Duck" An AI generated image of The Don floating on a lake in a giant yellow rubber duck, wearing a diaper and waving a toy sword.
ERA5 mean sea level pressure map of the Arctic for December 2025.
An AI generated image of Donald Trump cosplaying a Viking warrior in a Greenland fjord.
Daily plot of PIOMAS Arctic sea ice volume from 2010 to December 31st 2025
The Nagurskoye military base on Aleksandra Island in Franz Josef Land. Image via @thebarentsobserver.com
Publicity image for the 2025 UK National Emergency Briefing on the Climate and Nature Crisis, asserting that over 1,600 "fossil fuel lobbyists" attended the COP 30 conference in Brazil, whereas "Zero" such lobbyists would be attending the UK event.
Map of ports and military bases near and within the Arctic Circle
A graph of JAXA/ViSHOP Arctic sea ice extent on December 4th 2025
A map of Arctic sea ice thickness on October 31st 2025. It's based on merged CryoSat-2, Sentinel 3 and SMOS data from the Alfred Wegener Institute.
A brief extract from a long conversation with Grok about Arctic sea ice. I point out to Grok that a supposed reference to Arctic data in the US Department of Energy's "Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate" actually refers to Antarctic data. In response xAI asserts that: "The DOE report explicitly references NSIDC Arctic sea ice data for its ~5% decline estimate since 1980, reflecting annual mean extent trends with noted post-2007 pauses, not Antarctic figures. The graph you shared shows Antarctic October anomalies with a near-flat slope, unrelated to the cited Arctic plot. Conflating hemispheres overlooks distinct regional dynamics—Arctic losses dominate seasonal minima, yet overall variability tempers linear projections—emphasizing empirical scrutiny over dismissal."
A “false colour” image of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago on June 21st 2025 from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite
A graph of JAXA Arctic sea ice extent showing selected years from the 2010s and 2020s, dated June 19th 2025
A “false colour” image of the eastern Canadian Arctic Archipelago on June 13th 2025 from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite.
Yeva's tracking map at 12:30 UTC on May 24th 2025
An image of Ella Hibbert in her yacht Yeva
A visualisation of NSIDC Arctic sea ice age data for the week of April 1st 2025, which reveals that there is hardly any sea ice more than 4 years old left in the Arctic Ocean This is no joke!
Effective May 5, 2025, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) will decommission its snow and ice data products from the Coasts, Oceans, and Geophysics Science Division (COGS). As a result, the level of services for affected products below will be reduced to Basic—meaning they will remain accessible but may not be actively maintained, updated, or fully supported. Sea Ice Index Snow Data Assimilation System (SNODAS) Data Products Glacier Photograph Collection U.S. National Ice Center Arctic Sea Ice Charts and Climatologies in Gridded Format Gridded Monthly Sea Ice Extent and Concentration, 1850 Onward World Glacier Inventory If you rely on these products in your work, research, education, or planning, we invite you to share your story at nsidc@nsidc.org. Your input can help us demonstrate the importance of these data sets and advocate for future support.
PIOMAS Arctic sea ice thickness map on January 31st 2025
The Earth.nullschool map of air temperature and winds in the Fram Strait at 12:00 UTC on Sunday February 2nd 2025
GFS 2025-01-27 12Z model run Arctic 2m temperature anomaly forecast for 18:00 UTC on Sunday February 2nd 2025
A graph of AWI AMSR2 sea ice extent for Hudson Bay on January 26th 2025 - Data via @seaice.de
JAXA Arctic sea ice extent graph for December 11th 2024, showing that is currently lowest for the date in the 46 year record.
The JAXA/ViSHOP Arctic sea ice extent graph of selected years on November 23rd 2024
PIOMAS Arctic sea ice volume graph on November 15th 2024
CryoSat-2/SMOS merged Arctic sea ice volume graph on November 15th 2024
“False colour” image of the Parry Channel on September 30th 2024 from the MODIS instrument on the Aqua satellite
Sea ice forming at Nome, Alaska on November 16th 2024