25 September 2022
“Even if this summer didn’t break any records in the Arctic, in the long-term comparison the ice cover is still very low, and we believe the long-term sea-ice retreat will continue. This summer showed once again that the sea-ice cover is determined by both long-term trends and short-term, substantial year-on-year variations caused by the weather and ocean currents,” says Prof Christian Haas, Head of the Sea Ice Physics Section at the AWI, summarising the 2022 melting season. “These variations remain difficult to predict and call for more comprehensive, systematic and continuous observation, as well as improved climate models,” adds his colleague Dr Gunnar Spreen from the University of Bremen. Read more here…

7 September 2022
The Arctic summer is drawing to a close, and in the course of September the sea-ice thickness in the Arctic will drop to the lowest level of the year, reaching what is known as the September minimum. Whereas the total area of Arctic sea-ice cover can be relatively easily determined via satellite, measuring sea-ice thickness from space is, at least in summer, difficult and error-prone due to the ice’s melting surface. Accordingly, for the past several years the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research has sought to compensate for the lack of reliable satellite data on summer ice thicknesses by means of direct measurements by the sea-ice monitoring programme, dubbe IceBird. Read more here ...