Arctic sea ice extent will be second-lowest

Sea ice extent is now beginning to rise as it has now begun its seasonal increase in response to autumn. We will be settling for second-lowest on record.

On the Arctic sea ice

Sea ice extent in the Northern Hemisphere has exhibited large and anomalous declining trends over the last several decades. In particular, there has been over a 20% decline since 1979. Linear trends in arctic sea-ice extent since 1979 are negative in every month.Recently, there has been particular interest recently over a record-breaking year in 2007 which flew by the second-lowest year in 2005. There also has been a foot-race this year, which has kept me particularly interested over the last few weeks. For a while, it seemed that 2008 would clearly not surpass 2007, but due to the drop over the last few weeks, that may not be the case (although it probably will be). Sea ice extent as of September 7, 2008 is 4,739,844 km², while 2007 minima reached 4,267,656 km² on September 16th last year.

Advertisement