2022 Arctic summer sea ice tied for 10th-lowest on record

Based on satellite observations, Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimal extent on Sept. 18, 2022. The ice cowl shrank to an space of 4.67 million sq. kilometers (1.80 million sq. miles) this yr, roughly 1.55 million sq. kilometers (598,000 sq. miles) beneath the 1981-2010 common minimal of 6.22 million sq. kilometers (2.40 million sq. miles).

Summer season ice extent in and across the Arctic Ocean has declined considerably since satellites started measuring it persistently in 1978. The previous 16 years (2007 to 2022) have been the bottom 16 minimal extents, with 2022 tying 2017 and 2018 for Tenth-lowest in 44 years of observations. The satellite document is maintained by the Nationwide Snow and Ice Knowledge Middle (NSIDC), which hosts one among NASA’s Distributed Energetic Archive Facilities.

“This yr marks a continuation of the much-reduced sea ice cowl because the Nineteen Eighties,” mentioned Walt Meier, a sea ice researcher on the Nationwide Snow and Ice Knowledge Middle. “That’s not one thing that’s random variations or probability. It represents a fundamental change within the ice cover in response to warming temperatures.”

Every year, Arctic sea ice melts by way of the hotter spring and summer time months and normally reaches its minimal extent in September. As cooler climate and winter darkness units in, the ice will develop once more and attain its most extent round March.

Sea ice extent is outlined because the total space by which ice focus is at the very least 15%. This visualization, created at NASA’s Goddard House Flight Middle in Greenbelt, Maryland, reveals fluctuations in Arctic sea ice extent from March by way of September 2022. The map is predicated on knowledge acquired by the Superior Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) instrument on the Japan Aerospace Exploration Company’s World Change Commentary Mission 1st-Water “SHIZUKU” (GCOM-W1) satellite.