After the summer minimum in the Antarctic, sea-ice growth rebounding sluggishly On 31 March 2024, the Antarctic sea-ice extent, at 4.52 million square kilometres, reached its maximum for the month of
Development in the Arctic The slight upward trend following the Arctic minimum continued in early 2024; although the sea-ice extent was below the mean value for the years 1981 – 2010 at the beginning
This year, the minimum Arctic sea-ice extent, at 4.33 million km², was most probably reached on 15 September (Figure 1), putting it at 7 th place in the sequence of minima since 1979. The sea ice had
The sea ice in the polar regions is an important indicator for global climate change, as the two regions are essentially our planet’s early warning system. The loss of sea ice is a direct effect of gl
The Arctic sea ice is currently below the levels seen in 2022 but clearly above the record minimum from 2012. Every September, the Arctic sea-ice extent reaches its annual minimum. On 7 September the
This year, sea-ice development in the Antarctic is progressing extremely slowly and, after May, once again reached a record-low monthly sea-ice extent in June. At 11.23 million km², the monthly mean s
The further sea-ice retreat will chiefly depend on the ocean temperatures and on wind patterns, which can either condense or disperse the sea ice. As the summer draws to a close, the surface of the ce
After the sea-ice extent in the Arctic showed a moderate loss, hovering in the lower portion of the double standard deviation range from the long-term average with ca. 92,000 km² / day in the first ha
“We are approaching this year’s minimum sea-ice extent in the Arctic, and this summer the ice concentration has descreased to its lowest value since observations started, in 1979,” according to Profes
The rapid rate of ice loss observed in early July continued in the third week of the month, before dropping again rapidly (Fig. 4). The mean sea-ice extent in July 2020 was 6.85 million km 2 – the low
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