File:Ice in the Beaufort Sea (MODIS 2019-06-10).jpg

English: At the end of May 2019, Arctic sea ice daily extent stood at the second lowest in the 40-year-satellite record, thanks to above average temperatures in April and May over nearly all of the Arctic Ocean, Baffin Bay, and Greenland. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Arctic sea ice extent average for May was 12.16 million square km (4.70 million sq. mi). This is 1.13 million square km (436,000 sq. miles) below the 1981 to 200 average. That’s an area larger than the country of Bolivia. Warm May temperatures brought rapid ice loss to the Beaufort Sea, resulting in an extended coastal polynya (area of open water) along the northwestern coast of the Sea and extending into the Mackenzie River Delta area.

On June 6, 2019, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of the Barents Sea. A large area of open water can be seen extending along the coast of Alaska (in the far west) and Canada. The polynya stretches more than 100 miles (161 km) towards the Arctic Ocean. Large chunks of sea ice can be seen far from shore and linear cracks are evident in the outlying pack ice.

The town of Sachs Harbour, Canada, sits near the northwest tip of the snow-covered peninsula at the right of the image. According to Accuweather, temperatures at Sachs Harbour registered well above average through the months of April and May. From April 28 to May 30, temps hit 5°F or higher on 19 days, with the highest temperature ticking 16 degrees above average on May 3. In that same time period, temperatures never dropped below average and were the same as average or 1°F higher on only three days.