Arctic Ice report 2015

Bad, but could be still worse. The ice extension is a little under average in the Arctic; there are regions where it exceeded the usual expectations: Greenland, the Canadian Archipelago and eastern Russia have good ice covering; part of Alaska, the Bering Sea and the Barents Sea, on the contrary, are lacking the average amount of ice due to a higher sea temperature.

Two below-average ice areas : one east of Scandinavia on the Berents Sea, the other in far-east siberian coast on the Bering sea, the area of the North-Pacific ocean vortex (or gyro).

The polar ice cap has been thick enough; the weakest ice parts on the Barents may be related to the Murmansk - Arkhangelsk pollution and growing marine traffic. Or to the norwegian oil platforms.

Ice extent average  for May. Ups and downs, but with a decreasing trend.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/


On the other hand, the May ice extent in the Antarctic is not only above average, but in record high levels of all months for years. The ice extent keeps growing at a higher rate than the decreasing ice rate in the Artic.

Despite some local voids, ice extension exceeds average. An Australian station had even to close, lacking access.

It looks as if an ice transfer was taking place from one pole to the other.


Sources: NSIDC / NASA