Yellows and reds indicate high air pressure blues and purples indicate low pressure.Ĭredit: NSIDC courtesy NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory Physical Sciences LaboratoryĪir temperatures at the 925 hPa level (approximately 2,500 feet above the surface) for September were modestly above average, with temperatures 1 to 3 degrees Celsius (2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit) over most of the Arctic Ocean (Figure 2a). Warm conditions prevailed in the ice-free Norwegian, Barents, and Kara Seas. This plot shows average sea level pressure in the Arctic in millibars for September 2023. While both the Northern (deepwater) and Southern (Amundsen’s) routes of the Northwest Passage appear largely ice free, some ice still remains in the northern route, notably at the eastern entrance of M’Clure Strait. The Northern Sea Route remains essentially free of ice. The lack of ice in the longitudes spanning the Laptev Sea eastward to the Beaufort Sea is striking before ice forms in these areas the upper ocean will have to lose its remaining heat through radiation and convective transfer to the atmosphere and space. The image plot for October 2 from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) instrument provided by the University of Bremen shows that with the cessation of melt, the ice edge has become more sharply defined (Figure 1c). Following the annual minimum of 4.23 million square miles (1.63 million square kilometers), the growth in Arctic sea ice extent has been slower than average (Figure 1b). This image from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) shows sea ice concentration in the Arctic Ocean on October 2, 2023, highlighting the openings of sea ice north of Alaska within the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.Ĭredit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, courtesy University of BremenĪverage Arctic sea ice extent for September 2023 was 4.37 million square kilometers (1.69 million square miles), placing it fifth lowest in the 45-year satellite record (Figure 1a).

Yet not another earth map pack