SOURCE: Climate.gov
DATE: November 21, 2017
SNIP: In the Bering and Chukchi Seas, where sea ice should be starting its winter expansion, thousands of square miles of open water stretch out from the state’s western coastline in late fall 2017. It’s the lowest ice extent on record for this time of year for the combined basins.
Except for a few areas of nearshore ice, the entire Bering Sea is ice-free as are thousands of square miles of the Chukchi Sea to the north.
[T]he ice conditions are unlikely to reverse course any time soon. Predicted storminess in the near-term means that waves and winds will be churning up the surface waters, breaking up and dispersing ice that does form and bringing more unseasonably warm air into the region.
