Sea Ice Covering Arctic Ocean Declines to Second-Lowest Level on Record

Posted on October 5, 2011

Data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) indicates that the summertime ice covering the Arctic Ocean this year narrowly avoided a new record low. The ice declined to the second-lowest extent on record.

The image above was made from observations collected by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) on NASA's Aqua satellite. The map depicts sea ice extent on September 9, 2011, the date of minimum extent for the year.

You can see any animation of the image here (QuickTime).