The rate and pattern of summer sea-ice retreat in the Arctic vary markedly from year to year and are driven by multiple atmospheric trends.

Amanda Lynch of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and her team compared atmospheric circulation and Arctic sea-ice trends from 1979 to 2014. Mild summers with warm winds out of Canada and Alaska were associated with marked sea-ice retreat. During cooler summers, warm southerly winds from Siberia tended to favour sea-ice accumulation in the Beaufort Sea and the Canadian Archipelago. In other years, cold winds from the north continually replenished melting sea ice along the southern fringes of the Arctic Ocean.

Understanding how sea ice responds to atmospheric patterns might help navigation and exploration in the warming Arctic.

J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. http://doi.org/bksf (2016)