Science Focus
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Each year in September, the sea ice at the two poles reach opposite extremes. Early in the month, the Arctic ice bottoms out, reaching its annual minimum. Off of Antarctica, the ice typically reaches its greatest extent toward the end of the month. In recent years, the Arctic sea ice has grabbed the most attention, as its dramatic loss has set records. But this year, most of the drama is occurring down south.
Arctic sea ice, which is largely contained in the closed basin surrounding the North Pole, set a record in 2012, falling well below the previous 2007 record. But last year, although the melting has remained well below the average of the satellite measurements, the loss of ice hasn't been extreme. The same could be said of this year; it's the sixth lowest amount of ice we've seen at this point of the year, but that's nowhere near the record loss we saw in 2012. The ice did shrink enough to open a passage north of Russia, but the Northeast Passage above Canada remained ice-filled.
The ice cover did remain within two standard deviations of the 1981-2010 average, but it's not clear that's all that significant, given that this period includes the second-lowest year on record. But having two years in a row of somewhat moderated melting is probably a sign that the tremendous loss of ice in 2012 has not shifted the Arctic into a trend where ice loss accelerates with each Arctic summer. It also may enable a slight regrowth of some of the thicker, multi-year ice that does not melt as readily.
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