Arctic zigs; Antarctic zags
Greetings, readers! Our monthly sea ice analyses are returning just in time for the September equinox. In the Arctic, the sea ice extent this summer was tracking 2012 levels until August. While Siberia and the Canadian Archipelago experienced a very warm summer, the high-latitude Arctic Ocean was relatively cool. In the Antarctic, sea ice underwent an unusually large mid-winter decline over a week in August.
Overview of conditions
Arctic sea ice extent for August 2026 averaged 5.56 million square kilometers (2.15 million square miles), the seventh lowest in the satellite record (Figure 1a). This monthly average extent was 840,000 square kilometers (324,000 square miles) above the satellite record low set in 2012 (Figure 1b). Sea ice extent was far below average around most of the Arctic Ocean, with substantial open water particularly in the Beaufort, Chukchi, and East Siberian Seas. The Beaufort and Chukchi Seas experienced rapid change over the month. In early August, the ice edge in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas was near average, just off the north coast of Alaska. Then, during the first week of August, an open water region developed north of Utqiaġvik at about 75° N latitude. The open water region rapidly expanded, eventually
Original Post: https://echoesofthelastmind.com/nsidc-turns-50/
Original Record.
This archived record authored by ‘michon’ at ‘NSIDC’ was recovered from data set:
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