The extent of summer sea ice in and around the Arctic Ocean has declined significantly since satellites began measuring it consistently in 1978.
Another alarming observation about the levels of ice in the Arctic was announced by NASA, stating that during the summer months it touched a new record low, the tenth on record.
According to satellite observations, Arctic sea ice reached its minimum annual volume on September 18, 2022. The ice cover has shrunk by 4.67 million square kilometers (1.80 million square miles) this year, about 1.55 million square kilometers (598,000 square miles). ) below the minimum 1981–2010 average of 6.22 million square kilometers (2.40 million sq mi).
The extent of summer sea ice in and around the Arctic Ocean has declined significantly since satellites began measuring it consistently in 1978.
The last 16 years (2007 to 2022) were the lowest 16 minimum readings, with 2022 equaling 2017 and 2018 volume matching the 10th-44th lowest observation years.
The satellite archive is maintained by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), which hosts one of NASA’s Distributed Active Archive Centers.
“This year marks a continuation of the greatly reduced sea ice coverage since the 1980s,” said Walt Meier, a sea ice researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. “This is no accident. It represents a substantial change in ice cover in response to warming temperatures.”
Each year, Arctic sea ice melts during the warmer spring and summer months and usually reaches its minimum volume in September. As the weather is cooler and there is less light in the winter, the ice will grow again and reach its maximum size around March.
Sea ice extent is defined as the total area in which the ice concentration is at least 15%. The visualization, created at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, shows variations in Arctic sea ice extent from March to September 2022. The map is based on data acquired by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 instrument (AMSR2) on the Japan Aerospace Exploration Service 1st-Water Global Change Mission Observation Satellite “SHIZUKU” (GCOM-W1).
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