Minimum Arctic ice extent for this year

Alan Bailey

for Petroleum News

The Arctic sea ice has probably reached its minimum extent for this year, the National Snow and Ice Data Center has announced. The likely minimum extent of 1.44 million square miles, reached on Sept. 15, is the second lowest since satellite records began in 1979, NSIDC said.

“It’s been a crazy year up north, with sea ice at a near-record low, 100-degree (Fahrenheit) heat waves in Siberia, and massive forest fires,” said Mark Serreze, director of NSIDC. “The year 2020 will stand as an exclamation point on the downward trend in Arctic sea ice extent. We are headed towards a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean, and this year is another nail in the coffin.”

In the Antarctic, on the other hand, the sea ice extent is well above average and lies within the range of the 10 largest ice extents on record, NSIDC reported, adding that the Antarctic extent demonstrates the high year-to-year variability in the ice extent in the region.

In the Arctic, the 14 lowest sea ice extents have happened in the last 14 years. This year’s minimum was 135,000 square miles more than the lowest minimum extent, recorded on Sept. 17, 2012. At this year’s minimum there was more ice in the Beaufort Sea, but somewhat less ice in the Laptev and East Greenland seas than was observed in 2012, NSIDC said.

In terms of the downward trend in the Arctic ice extent, the NSIDC now recognizes three distinct time periods: 1979 to 1992, 1993 to 2006, and 2007 to 2020. During the first of these periods the sea ice area decline rate trended at 6.4% per decade. The second period showed the fastest decline rate, at 13.3% per decade. And the third, running through to this year, has been showing a decline rate of 4% per decade.

- ALAN BAILEY