Arctic sea ice reaches maximum extent

Alan Bailey

for Petroleum News

The Arctic sea ice has probably reached its maximum extent for this winter, the National Snow and Ice Data Center has reported. This year’s maximum of 5.64 million square miles, attained on March 6, was the fifth lowest maximum since satellite records began in 1979, NSIDC said. The maximum was 398,000 square miles below the average maximum of 6.04 million square miles observed between 1981 and 2010, and 81,000 square miles larger than the lowest maximum recorded - that lowest maximum of 5.56 million square miles was observed on March 7, 2017. This year’s maximum was recorded six days earlier than the average date for the maximums in earlier years.

This winter, for the second year in a row, the ice extent was well below average in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. There were also below average extents in the Bering Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Barents Sea and the Labrador Sea. On the other hand, the Greenland Sea saw an above average extent, NSIDC said.

According to a recent article in the Barents Observer, scientists in the Norwegian Meteorological Institute have determined that Arctic air temperatures over the northern Barents Sea have increased by 5C over the past 20 years, making this the fastest warming region on Earth. A senior scientist in the institute said that the region has been warming 2% to 2.5% faster than the average rate of temperature rise across the Arctic, and at five to seven times the rate of the global average.

The scientists attribute the high rate of warming to a major reduction in sea ice cover, especially during the fall and winter.

- ALAN BAILEY