Strong anticyclonic winds in the Beaufort Sea region north of Alaska produced signficant ice motion and extensive fracturing in late January through February 2013. This circulation — termed the Beaufort Gyre — is fairly typical of the region but it was particular intense during this period. The fracturing moved progressively to the east, and by the end of February had extended about 1,000 km.

An animation of the first part of the period from the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is shown below.

Animation of 375-meter resolution Suomi NPP VIIRS 11.45 µm IR channel data (click image to play animation) showing sea ice motion in the vicinity of Barrow, Alaska (station identifier PABR) during the 30-hour period from 12:14 UTC on 24 January and 18:30 UTC on 25 January 2013. (Courtesy of Scott Bachmeier, Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Animation of VIIRS thermal imagery from late January through February. From the NASA Earth Observatory.