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Incredible shrinking Arctic sea ice

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

This diagram shows the average extent of Arctic sea ice surrounding the North Pole this September — and the outline of where the ice used to reach when scientists first starting tracking it in 1978. (PHOTO COURTESY OF NASA)

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Arctic sea ice typically reaches its minimum in September at the end of the summer melt season. On September 21, 2005, the five-day running-mean sea ice extent dropped to 5.32 million square kilometers, the lowest coverage observed since satellites began to track the ice in 1978.

The current decline also exceeds past low ice periods in the 1930s and 1940s. The estimated decline in end-of-summer Arctic sea ice is now approximately eight per cent per decade.

The winter recovery of sea ice extent in the 2004-2005 season was also the smallest recorded in the satellite record. Cooler winter temperatures generally allow the sea ice to “rebound” after summer melting. But, with the exception of May 2005, every month since December 2004 has set a record low ice extent for that month.

Since 2002, satellite records also reveal that springtime melting is beginning unusually early in the areas north of Alaska and Siberia. The 2005 melt season arrived even earlier by approximately 17 days throughout the Arctic.

This summer, the Northwest Passage was open except for about 100 kilometres. The Northeast Passage, north of the Siberian coast, was completely ice-free from August 15 through September 28.

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