This post pulls together some analyses of basic climate conditions for the winter 2022-23 season. I had this planned this review for last week but the big western Alaska storms of early March grabbed the headline. Hence the delay. Temperatures Arctic-wide winter (December through February) 2022-23 average temperature departures from the 1991-2020 normal (°C) from ERA5 are presented in Fig. 1. The largest departures were in the Svalbard and Franz Josef Land region, with (near) record low sea ice playing a major role. Largest below normal areas were in central/eastern Siberia and parts of Canada. Alaska and the Russian Far East plus the Nordic Arctic were mostly above normal but not dramatically so. Based on analysis by Brian Brettschneider, in some areas in eastern Svalbard the average temperature this winter was higher than any since 1950-51, while a small area in the Sakha Republic, Russia had the coldest winter in the same 73 years.
Winter 2022-23 Recap
Winter 2022-23 Recap
Winter 2022-23 Recap
This post pulls together some analyses of basic climate conditions for the winter 2022-23 season. I had this planned this review for last week but the big western Alaska storms of early March grabbed the headline. Hence the delay. Temperatures Arctic-wide winter (December through February) 2022-23 average temperature departures from the 1991-2020 normal (°C) from ERA5 are presented in Fig. 1. The largest departures were in the Svalbard and Franz Josef Land region, with (near) record low sea ice playing a major role. Largest below normal areas were in central/eastern Siberia and parts of Canada. Alaska and the Russian Far East plus the Nordic Arctic were mostly above normal but not dramatically so. Based on analysis by Brian Brettschneider, in some areas in eastern Svalbard the average temperature this winter was higher than any since 1950-51, while a small area in the Sakha Republic, Russia had the coldest winter in the same 73 years.