The above video, published by NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio, depicts the daily Arctic sea ice and seasonal land cover change progress from 7 March 2017 through 13 September 2017, when the sea ice reached its annual minimum extent for the year. Past year’s Arctic sea ice minimum extent is the eighth lowest in the consistent long-term satellite record, which began in 1978.
Over the water, Arctic sea ice changes from day to day showing a running 3-day minimum sea ice concentration in the region where the concentration is greater than 15%. The blueish white color of the sea ice is derived from a 3-day running minimum of the AMSR2 89 GHz brightness temperature. Over the terrain, monthly data from the seasonal Blue Marble Next Generation fades slowly from month to month.
The three years with the lowest Arctic ice extents on record — 2012, 2016 and 2007 — experienced unusual weather conditions, including strong summer storms that hammered the ice cover and sped up its melt.
“In all of those cases, the weather conditions contributed to the reduced ice coverage. But if the exact same weather system had occurred three decades ago, it is very unlikely that it would have caused as much damage to the sea ice cover, because back then the ice was thicker and it more completely covered the region, hence making it more able to withstand storms,” said Claire Parkinson, senior climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
