Although there is now little hope of the Arctic passages revealing themselves to vessels this year, melting is still occurring. This week, themselves Canadian Arctic West, within the North Western passage, sea ice continued to decline to the south east of the Prince of Wales island, although to the north of the island there has shown to be an accumulation of ice, this has resulted in the Global Ice Center suggesting that only ice strengthened ships should travel through this region. The North Eastern passage depicts a similar image with sea ice around the Taimyr peninsula refusing to yield resulting in the passage staying closed. Figure 1 shows the sea ice extent maximum and minimum for this 2009. Sea ice extent within the Arctic reached its maximum this year on the 5^th March, where it reached 14.8 x 10⁶km². This proved to be an normal maximum sea ice extent when compared to maximum sea ice extents over the previous decades, although maximum ice extents have not been affected by climate change as shown in figure 2. Minimum sea ice extent however have seemed to be affected by climate change as figure 2 shows a declining trend in minimum sea ice extent since records began. In 2009 the minimum sea ice extent was reached on the 9^th September in which the sea ice extended just 4.76 x 10⁶km². Although this was not a record, as was predicted at the start of the year, it was still the third lowest sea ice extent level since satellite observational records began in 1978.

Figure 3 shows that the sea ice extent for the Northern Hemisphere is recorded to be the third lowest recorded within historical records. The North Western and North Eastern passages are recorded to be the third lowest sea ice extent. The North Eastern passage is shown to reach its minimum later than the North Western so is still decreasing. Figure 4 shows the extent of ice over the Arctic region the current extent is only 4.83 million km².

The Global Forecasting Model indicates that the Taimyr peninsula will experience air temperatures of 0°C to -5°C over the next week, this will result from arctic air masses moving Southerly towards this the Taimyr peninsula, although sea surface temperatures will remain around 0°C suggesting that melting may continue for a short period. The North Western passage temperatures will be around -5°C to -10°C these temperature will result from a northerly wind bringing cold air from higher latitudes too much of the Canadian Arctic region. Sea surface temperatures will be between -1°C and -2°C suggesting that the summer melting period is now over in this passage. Observations have shown that currently snow is falling at Cornwallis Island within the Canadian Arctic West.
The Weathernews I-SEE engine indicates that the majority of sea ice will migrate towards the Taimyr peninsula for the first half of the month before being influenced by Transpolar drift and the Beaufort gyre, this will result in the sea ice moving and accumulated in the Greenland Sea. Sea ice will also migrate towards the Beaufort sea over the next month, this will be accompanied by freezing. By mid month ice concentrations will increase around the western side of the Prince of Wales island suggesting that melting within this passage is now over.
Note-The Weathernews I-SEE engine indicates that both passage are already open although it is clear that this is not the case, this is because this models initial conditions are based on AMSR-E satellite data which is known to have a problem identifying ice formations near the edge of the ice.