For an interesting take on the status of Arctic ice from the perspective of research oceanographer Jim Swift, who just reached the North Pole: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/expeditions/arcticgeotraces/amundsen-basin-of-the-arctic-ocean/ "At 7:47 am ship’s time Saturday, September 5th, USCGC Healy became the first US ship to reach the North Pole unaccompanied by another icebreaker. I am not certain of this, but Healy may also be the first ship of any nation to reach the pole from Bering Strait unaccompanied. It was also a milestone of sorts for me, because there have been three scientific crossings by surface ship from Bering Strait to the Pole – 1994, 2005, and 2015 – and I was on all three, doing similar work each cruise (and thus learning about ocean change in this remote part of the World Ocean). My informal observations of the Arctic Ocean sea ice we have been traversing continue in the same vein as during the past two weeks: much of the ice appears to be first-year ice and passage through it has mostly not been difficult. "