The Big Chill hasn't been working -- at least for the eastern Arctic of Canada and Greenland.

Overall, Arctic sea ice covered the smallest area ever recorded by satellite for the month of December -- largely due to record decreases near Hudson Bay, Baffin Island and Greenland, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.

But in what demonstrates the complexity of the Arctic climate system, and the influence of short-term weather patterns, new ice has spread across more ocean on Alaska's west coast than usual.

"In contrast to the Atlantic side of the Arctic, sea ice extent in the Pacific region -- i.e., the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska -- is higher than normal," NSIDC research scientist Walt Meier told Dispatch in an e-mail. "In recent years, there has often been more ice than normal in the region."

Part of a decades-long trend toward an ever-shrinking ice cap across the seasons, the Far North's frozen sea averaged about 4.63 million square miles in extent during the month -- 521,000 square miles smaller than the 30-year average and about 110,000 square miles below the previous minimum December record set in 2006, the NSIDC reported.

It's the winter footnote to one of the most dramatic signals of global climate change. Summer sea ice cover has thinned and melted back across the Arctic, in effect seasonally wiping out vast tracts of habitat necessary for the health of species like polar bears, ringed seals and walruses. The loss of summer ice cover also feeds and accelerates regional climate warming: ice reflects solar energy back into space, while darker open water absorbs heat.

The 2010 ice minimum -- recorded during every year during September -- flirted with record territory. On Sept. 19, the Arctic's frozen pack shrank to the third-smallest extent seen since 1979 -- about 1.78 million square miles, the NSIDC reported.

To put that statistic in perspective, the polar ice of summer 2010 was about 815,000 square miles smaller than the 30-year average; an area larger than Alaska had transformed into slush.

The approach of dark, frigid winter is supposed to rebuild this ice habitat by quickly refreezing the ocean. While that happened near Alaska, the eastern Arctic met a different fate.

"Arctic sea ice grew more slowly than average in November, leading to the second-lowest ice extent for the month," the NSIDC reported on Dec. 6. "At the end of November, Hudson Bay was still nearly ice-free."

The heat wave has continued, impeding freeze-up in Hudson and Davis straits as well. How big is the loss so far? It's as though the average December ice cover has disappeared from an area as large as California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Idaho combined.

'South Baffin swelters in heat wave'

The remaining open water has startled residents of Nunavut, the Inuit territory of far Northeastern Canada, a place where people depend on solid sea ice for travel and hunting.

"Normally, these areas are completely frozen over by late November," reported the NSIDC. "In the middle of December, ice extent stopped increasing for about a week, an unusual but not unique event. "

In Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, it was raining on Monday with temperatures hovering near the freezing point, according to CBC News. Normal temperatures for the date dip into double digits below zero.

"In a rare sight for this time of year, Frobisher Bay has not yet frozen over entirely. Likewise, there is a lack of sea ice in parts of Hudson Bay, Davis Strait and other Arctic waterways," the CBC reported this week.