Our Research

As NSIDC reflects on 50 years in operation, past and present NSIDC researchers round up their favorite and most impactful publications. Also included are NSIDC contributions to annual reports: the Arctic Report Card and the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society’s State of the Climate.

Even the most well-intentioned Arctic research can fall short for Indigenous communities. In 2021, the NNA-Community Office (CO) was established to help coordinate multiple projects, build lasting partnerships, and offer resources and opportunities for knowledge exchange. The central office is based at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), at the University of Colorado (CU) Boulder with partner locations at Alaska Pacific University (APU) and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF).

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.

With the generous support of the Climate Science and Communication Fund from Surge Climate Talent, NSIDC’s Ice Sheets and Sea Ice News and Analysis (ISSINA) is able to start up monthly science assessments for the Sea Ice Today site.

Snow-covered area across the western United States was 49 percent of average for May, ranking last in the 26-year satellite record. Snow water equivalent remained well below average in most states during May, confirming a worrisome outlook for the summer.

Snow-covered area in April across the western United States was 41 percent of average, at 118,00 square kilometers (46,000 square miles) of snow cover, ranking last in the 26-year satellite record. Snow water equivalent (SWE) remained well below average in most states during April.