Arctic Sea Ice Shrinks To Second-Lowest Recorded Extent

Summer sea ice on the Arctic Ocean has shrunk to its second-lowest recorded extent, covering an area that is 33 percent smaller than the average minimum extent from 1979 to 2000. The record low extent was set last year, but cooler temperatures this summer led to Arctic sea ice coverage being nine percent greater than in 2007. Still, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Colorado said this year’s extremely low level shows a strong negative trend in Arctic sea ice. Indeed, this summer, for the first time in recorded history, both the Northwest Passage across Canada and the Northeast Passage above Russia were ice-free. This year also saw a further disappearance of the thicker, multi-year sea ice that has existed in the Arctic for millennia. The NSIDC said that compared to last year, this year saw less ice loss in the central Arctic, north of the Chukchi and North Siberian seas, and greater ice loss in the Beaufort, Laptev, and Greenland seas.