The images below show seasonal outlooks for June to August 2021, for temperature, precipitation and sea ice. More details can be found in the Seasonal outlook for June-July-August 2021 presentation and the Sea-Ice Outlooks Summer 2021 presentation.

Temperature JJA 2021 Outlook

Surface air temperatures during summer are forecast to be above normal in almost all regions across the Arctic (orange and red areas in the figure below). The confidence of the forecast is low to moderate for most of the land areas of the Arctic region (light red areas in the figure below). The forecast confidence is high for Greenland, Western Siberia and southern parts of the Chukchi and Bering regions (dark red areas in the figure below). There are equal chances for an above, below or near normal summer temperature over Iceland and western part of the Eastern Nordic region, meaning that the multi-model ensemble of climate models is not decisive over these regions (white areas in the figure below). 
temperature outlook june july august 2021

Precipitation JJA 2021 Outlook

Precipitation during summer 2021 is expected to be above normal over most of the Alaskan and western Canadian Arctic, the Canadian Archipelago, Greenland, and Chukchi and Bering regions (light green areas in the figure below). Iceland is expecting below normal precipitation (light orange areas in the figure below). Equal chances of precipitation are expected over the remainder of the Arctic region (white areas in the figure below). 
precipitation outlook june july august 2021

 

Outlook for sea ice spring break-up and September sea ice extent 2021

Sea ice break-up is defined as the first day in a 10-day interval where ice concentration falls below 50% in a region. The outlook for spring break-up shown in the figure below displays the sea ice break-up anomaly from CanSIPSv2 based on the nine-year climatological period from 2012-2020. 
 

 

sea ice outlook spring 2021 
 

Minimum sea ice extent is achieved each year during the month of September in the northern hemisphere. The figure below displays the probabilities of ice presence for concentrations greater than 15% and the forecasted mean ice extent from CanSIPSv2 (black), with the observed median ice extent for the 2012-2020 period in red. The sea ice extent is expected to be near normal for the Beaufort Sea, Chukchi Sea and Greenland Sea; and below normal for the Barents Sea, Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Kara Sea, Laptev Sea and Eastern Siberian Sea.


sea ice extent outlook september 2021