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Arctic Sea Ice Forecast

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2018 Second Report

Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo

Predicted sea ice cover on September 11, 2018.
Figure１：Predicted sea ice cover on September 11, 2018.
  1. Minimum ice extent in September will be about 4.77 million squarekilometer.
  2. Sea ice area will retreat with nearly same speed as last year.
  3. Sea routes of Russian side and Canadian side will both open.Russian side will open around August 15, and the Canadian side except for Canadian archipelago will open around July 15.
The interannual change of minimum extent since 2003. Value of 2018 is predicted one.
Figure 2：The interannual change of minimum extent since 2003. Value of 2018 is predicted one.
Animation of predicted Arctic ice extent from the July 1 to the September 30
Figure 3：Animation of predicted Arctic ice extent from the July 1 to the September 30. Yellow and green lines indicates the ice edge of the same day for 2016 and 2017.

Sea ice extent on September 11, which is the minimal phase of Arctic sea ice, is expected to be 4.77 million square kilometer, which is 2% larger than the last year’s minimum area.

Sea ice cover in the Laptev and East Siberian Seas will retreat with nearly same speed as last year. Sea routes of the Russian side will open around August 15, which is faster than the last year.

Sea routes of the Canadian side except for Canadian archipelago will open around the July 15.Minimum sea ice cover in September of this year will be very similar to that of the last year.

The way of this prediction is basically same as the first report. We distributed particles homogeneously over the Arctic sea ice on December 1, and traced the trajectories of the particles to May 31. Based on the relationship between yearly particle concentration on May 31 and ice concentration on a specific day in summer, we predicted the ice area on the day.

Prediction map is also available in Arctic Data Archive System Arctic Data Archive System of National Institute of Polar Research.

contact

If you have any questions about satellite monitoring of the Arctic Ocean, sea ice forecasting, or the forecasting methods used here, please contact the Sea Ice Information Center（sea_ice@nipr.ac.jp)

The research for this forecast method was started in GRENE Project. The sea ice forecast was conducted in ArCS Project (FY2015-2019).

Arctic Sea Ice Forecast