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By Vijay Jayaraj

With ice coverage for July and August remaining above the ten-year average of 2010–20, the extent of summer sea ice in the Arctic has surprised experts who once predicted that such levels would be impossible.

This stands in stark contrast to the dominant climate narrative that predicts the dwindling of summer ice in the Arctic. Some politicians had even claimed that parts of the Arctic would be ice-free by now.

With the seasonal Arctic melt technically over, it is fair to conclude that the extent of ice in the summer of 2022 has been greater than the ten-year average. On most days in July and August, sea ice levels were above the ten-year average and significantly more than the previous few years.

The Japanese National Institute of Polar Research provides a useful visualization in the graph below. This year's Arctic sea ice — shown in red — is compared with the ten-year average and the levels of the previous few years, including that of 2012, when ice had reached its lowest of the period tracked.

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