The melting Arctic ice

Arctic Sea Ice in Free Fall

Arctic News,

15 August, 2013

Arctic Sea Ice has declined dramatically recently. The recent image below, by the Danish Meteorological Institute, shows the decline in extent over the past few days, with extent calculated by including all areas with ice concentration higher than 30%. 

As the above image shows, sea ice extent (30%+ concentration) is now lower than any other year, except 2007 and 2012. Moreover, the sharp decline looks set to continue.

Ice volume and concentration have dropped dramatically, partly as a result of the cyclone that hit the Arctic Ocean a few days ago. The eye of the cyclone is still visible almost exactly above the North Pole on the Naval Research Laboratory image below on the right, where sea ice concentration appears to form a circle.

The sea ice looks set for an all-time record low; all this thin ice looks set to disappear over the next few weeks.