Arctic Ice Extent 2022-Going Down

As noted before, the Arctic ice cap is melting. 

This month NASA published data that shows this year’s minimum ice extent (in mid September) was tied for tenth lowest on record [1].  The post notes that “Sea ice extent is defined as the total area in which ice concentration is at least 15 percent.”  When measured by satellites, this means that each pixel is analyzed to estimate the percentage of ice versus water in that area.  The long term trends are designed to make the measures from different satellites comparable.

These results continue a trend of steadily shrinking ice cover over the Arctic ocean.  Data accumulated since 1981 (“the satellite era”) show that this year’s data is two standard deviations below the trends before 2010.  I.e., there is a clear trend.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (From [1])

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1. Roberto Molar Candanosa, The summer 2022 extent of Arctic sea ice continued the downward trend under way since the 1980s, in NASA Earth Observatory – Image of the Day, September 25, 2022. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150383/arctic-sea-ice-tied-for-10th-lowest-on-record