Beaufort Sea Ice Page

Page Status – Updated April 2026: Two significant source changes affect this page.

1. Cryosphere Today (University of Illinois) is offline. The site at arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ has been discontinued. The two Beaufort Sea ice anomaly charts from this source have been replaced with current NSIDC and NASA GSFC equivalents below.

2. NRL HYCOM Arctic Cap Nowcast/Forecast System (ACFNS) was superseded by the Global Ocean Forecast System (GOFS) in November 2018. The Beaufort-specific HYCOM nowcast GIF products have not updated since ~2017. They are retained below with links to current NRL HYCOM products; if any individual image no longer loads, the fallback link will take you to the current product page.

Beaufort Sea Ice Concentration – Current

Arctic Sea Ice Concentration – Current Daily Map (includes Beaufort Sea)

⟳ Replacing Cryosphere Today (offline). NSIDC Sea Ice Index v4 provides the current daily Arctic sea ice concentration map.

NOAA/NSIDC – Sea Ice Index v4 – Daily Arctic Sea Ice Concentration – nsidc.org/data/seaice_index – Click the pic to view at source
(Replacing Cryosphere Today – University of Illinois – now offline)

Arctic Sea Ice Extent – Current Daily Map

NOAA/NSIDC – Sea Ice Index v4 – Daily Arctic Sea Ice Extent – nsidc.org/data/seaice_index – Click the pic to view at source

Beaufort Sea Ice Area – 1979 to Present (Anomaly)

⚠ The original Cryosphere Today Beaufort Sea regional anomaly charts (region 11) are no longer available — the University of Illinois Cryosphere Today project has been discontinued. Current Beaufort Sea regional data and long-term ice area records:

NSIDC Sea Ice Index – Image Archive (daily and monthly, regional)
NASA GSFC – Current State of Sea Ice Cover
NSIDC Charctic – Interactive Arctic Sea Ice Extent Graph
Climate Reanalyzer – Daily Sea Ice Extent and Concentration


NRL HYCOM Beaufort Sea Nowcast/Forecast Products

⟳ The original ACFNS (Arctic Cap Nowcast/Forecast System) was superseded by GOFS in 2018. The images below use the archived HYCOM URLs — use the fallback link if any image fails to load. For current products visit the NRL HYCOM Beaufort page or NRL GOFS Arctic page.

Sea Ice Thickness – Real-Time Nowcast/Forecast (meters)

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) – HYCOM Consortium – Click the pic to view at source

Sea Ice Thickness – 30 Day Animation  |  365 Day Animation

Sea Ice Concentration – Real-Time Nowcast/Forecast

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) – HYCOM Consortium – Click the pic to view at source

Sea Ice Concentration – 30 Day Animation  |  365 Day Animation

Lead Area Opening Rate – Real-Time Nowcast/Forecast

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) – HYCOM Consortium – Click the pic to view at source

Lead Area Opening Rate – 30 Day Animation  |  365 Day Animation

Arctic Sea Ice Speed & Drift – Real-Time Nowcast/Forecast

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) – HYCOM Consortium – Click the pic to view at source

Ice Speed & Drift – 30 Day Animation  |  365 Day Animation

Compressive Strength – Real-Time Nowcast/Forecast

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) – HYCOM Consortium – Click the pic to view at source

Compressive Strength – 30 Day Animation  |  365 Day Animation

Sea Surface Temperature – Real-Time Nowcast/Forecast

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) – HYCOM Consortium – Click the pic to view at source

Sea Surface Temperature – 30 Day Animation  |  365 Day Animation

Sea Surface Salinity – Real-Time Nowcast/Forecast

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) – HYCOM Consortium – Click the pic to view at source

Sea Surface Salinity – 30 Day Animation  |  365 Day Animation


Additional Current Beaufort / Arctic Sea Ice Resources:

NSIDC Sea Ice Index v4 – Daily and monthly Arctic sea ice extent and concentration images
NSIDC Charctic – Interactive Arctic sea ice extent graph (multi-year comparison)
NASA GSFC – Current State of Sea Ice Cover – Daily Arctic and Antarctic concentration and extent
Climate Reanalyzer – Daily Sea Ice – Daily extent time series and concentration maps
NRL GOFS Arctic – Current NRL Global Ocean Forecast System Arctic products (successor to ACFNS)
NASA Worldview – Arctic – Near-real-time MODIS and AMSR2 satellite imagery of the Beaufort Sea


Source Guide:

Cryosphere Today – University of Illinois Polar Research Group (discontinued)
Home Page – Offline. Historical data and imagery may be available via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
Home Page – https://nsidc.org/
Sea Ice Index – https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index
Image Archive – https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/data-and-image-archive
Charctic Interactive Graph – https://nsidc.org/sea-ice-today/sea-ice-tools/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) – Ocean Dynamics and Prediction Branch (NRL 7320)
HYCOM ARC Home – https://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/
HYCOM Beaufort Products – https://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/beaufort.html
GOFS Arctic (current system) – https://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/GLBhycomcice1-12/arctic.html
Note: ACFNS retired 2018, replaced by GOFS (Global Ocean Forecast System).

NASA GSFC – Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory
Current State of Sea Ice Cover – https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/cryo/data/current-state-sea-ice-cover

Climate Reanalyzer – University of Maine
Daily Sea Ice – https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/seaice_daily/

NASA Worldview
Arctic View – https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=arctic

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Neville Bott
April 30, 2016 2:59 am

Hi just passing by and noticed you don’t have worldview images here
Any chance you could add worldview here so the warmists can seen there is still plenty of ice in the beaufort ?
https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?p=arctic&l=MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_Bands721(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_Bands367(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_Bands721,Graticule,Coastlines&t=2016-04-29&v=-2757011.9518237985,-628528.4207445931,-418935.6271592486,534421.0011588678

September 1, 2017 4:34 am

Sea ice is being controlled by the wandering magnetic poles. Do you believe that? Pull up this website on a desktop monitor and study the graphics.
https://www.harrytodd.org