Arctic sea ice extent in the Bering Sea was the second highest in the satellite record for the month of January. Ice extent in the Bering Sea was 562,000 square kilometers (217,000 square miles), which is 104,600 square kilometers (40,400 square miles) above the 1979 to 2000 average. The record high ice extent for the month occurred in January 2000, at 629,000 square kilometers (242,900 square miles).
The above-average sea ice extent in the Bering Sea stemmed from a weather pattern that brought cold air from the Arctic into the Bering Sea, driving sea ice southwards. The weather pattern, which has persisted since November, features unusually low surface pressure south and east of the Alaskan coast, which leads to winds from the north or northeast that blow into the Bering Sea region. This weather pattern also brought moist air from the Pacific Ocean to the southern Alaska coast, helping to explain record snowfalls in towns such as Cordova, Alaska, which received over 15 feet of snow between early November and mid-January.
WHITE OUT!
http://seaice.alaska.edu/gi/observatories/barrow_webcam
white heat…
“Made it, Ma! Top of the world!”
And what’s happening in the Kara or Barentz Seas?
The Bering Sea anomalies also appear to have peaked and our now moving downward.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.2.html
I didn’t realize they were located in the Bering Sea.
Did you check on the Ross Sea? Almost double normal.