Arctic News: double

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Thursday, June 11, 2026

Double Blue Ocean Event 2026-2027? - update

Arctic sea ice

A Blue Ocean Event could be declared when Arctic sea ice reaches or crosses a threshold of 1 million km² in extent.

On June 9, 2026, Arctic sea ice extent was under 11 million km² on June 9, 2026, as illustrated by the image below, adapted from NSIDC. Arctic sea ice extent has been very low in the year to date, despite the dominance of La Niña conditions. Extent looks set to fall dramatically as El Niño conditions strengthen and forecasts indicate that this El Niño will be the strongest on record.

Another measure is Arctic sea ice volume. The image below, adapted from the Danish Meteorological Institute, shows that the daily Arctic sea ice volume was at a record low for the time of year on June 10, 2026, as it has been for years.

[ image from earlier post ]

The April 2026 Arctic sea ice volume was about 18,500 km³ (as illustrated by the image on the right, from an earlier post), which is very close to the magenta bar which stands for strong melting (18,000 km³) from the annual maximum volume.

The image below, from an earlier post, shows Arctic sea ice volume through April 2026, with the strength of the melting between the annual maximum (blue circle) and the annual minimum (red circle) highlighted by colored bars, magenta for strong melting (18,000 km³) and green for little melting (15,000 km³).

Last year, only about 15,000 km³ of sea ice melted away from the maximum in 2025 to the minimum in September 2025, and this relatively little melting can be attributed in part to La Niña conditions.

The April 2026 volume was about 18,500 km³, so if strong melting (18,000 km³) will take place over the next few months (dashed magenta line), as can be expected with a super El Niño coming up, a Blue Ocean Event will occur and virtually all Arctic sea ice volume will be gone in September 2026.

In the above image, the difference between strong melting (magenta) and little melting (green) is 3000 km³. With strong melting taking place from April 2026, this may well cause a Blue Ocean Event to occur, with virtually all Arctic sea disappearing in September 2026.

The animation below, made with NASA images, shows the Arctic sea ice just north of the northern tip of Greenland, from June 3 through June 10, 2026. This is where some of the thickest Arctic sea ice is located. The animation illustrates that even the thickest sea ice can break up with the pieces getting moved by wind and ocean currents into the Atlantic Ocean where they will melt away.

Temperature

The image below, adapted from ClimateReanalyzer, shows that temperatures above 0°C are forecast over much of the Arctic Ocean including the North Pole for June 17, 2026.

The upcoming El Niño could trigger a rapid and steep rise in temperature on land in the Northern Hemisphere, as illustrated by the combination image below that uses land-only data in the top panel and Northern Hemisphere data in the bottom panel.

[ image from earlier post, discussed on facebook here ]

The image below, adapted from tropicaltidbits.com, shows a temperature forecast for January 2027, with high temperature anomalies showing up all over the Arctic Ocean and over areas where currently sea ice is present around Antarctica. This indicates that there will be dramatic loss of Antarctic sea ice.

The images below show forecasts for the monthly sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) from December 2026 through March 2027, further confirming indications that there will be dramatic Antarctic sea ice loss.

SSTA December 2026

SSTA January 2027

SSTA February 2027

SSTA March 2027

The image below, from Berkeley Earth Temperature Report for 2024, illustrates the importance of Antarctic Sea ice loss in accelerating the temperature rise in 2020-2023 compared to 2010-2019.

[ image from earlier post ]

The red color on the above image shows an area with an extra radiative forcing of +2.1 W/m², primarily resulting from Antarctic sea ice loss.

This additional radiative forcing of +2.1 W/m² is about as much as the change in radiative forcing caused by all carbon dioxide released by people from 1750 to 2019, according to IPCC AR6 figures (image right).

Conclusion

The situation is dire and unacceptably dangerous, and the precautionary principle necessitates the danger to be acknowledged, while facilitating rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the outlook, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as described in posts such as in this 2022 post and this 2025 post, and as discussed in the Climate Plan group.