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Arctic sea ice has likely reached its minimum extent for the year, at 4.72 million square kilometers (1.82 million square miles) on September 16, 2021, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder. The 2021 minimum is the twelfth lowest in the nearly 43-year satellite record. The last 15 years are the lowest 15 sea ice extents in the satellite record.
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14 September 2021
Each September, the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder informs the public of the annual Arctic sea ice minimum extent, an indicator of how climate change is affecting the Arctic, the fastest-warming region of the globe.
Scientists at Northern Arizona University, Arizona State University, the Arizona Geological Survey at the University of Arizona, and the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder have been awarded almost $2 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a virtual reality teaching tool called Polar Explorer.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) announced this week their participation in the 50x30 Coalition, a group of governments and cryosphere and emissions research institutions endorsing the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent by 2030. The Coalition’s founding members endorse the scientific consensus that failure to reach this milestone will result in temperature “overshoot,” in which emissions remain too high to hold Earth within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels, leading to major and irreversible damages to the environment. Damage may be especially harmful for highly temperature-sensitive frozen components of the Earth system, with impacts ranging from sea level rise to infrastructure damage to food insecurity.
Arctic sea ice has likely reached its maximum extent for the year, at 14.77 million square kilometers (5.70 million square miles) on March 21, 2021, according to scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder. The 2021 maximum is tied with 2007 for seventh lowest in the 43-year satellite record.
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The Latest on Snow and Ice
5 October 2021
The summer melt season has come to a modest end. The summer of 2021 was relatively cool compared... read more
22 September 2021
On September 16, Arctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent of 4.72 million square... read more
16 September 2021
The Arctic sea ice minimum extent is imminent. After a cool and stormy summer, this year’s... read more
2 September 2021
Arctic sea ice extent declined more slowly during August 2021 than most years in the past decade... read more
18 August 2021
On August 14, 2021, rain was observed at the highest point on the Greenland Ice Sheet for... read more
