The yearly maximum (in the Arctic) and minimum (in the Antarctic) sea-ice extent occurs in February/March. With satellite data processed at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, the status of the sea-ice extrema this spring is summarised.
2020 holds the second-lowest sea-ice extent on record in the Arctic, following the record-low in 2012. Therefore we update our daily Arctic sea-ice extent figure which includes the two recent years with the lowest sea-ice extent as reference curves.
On behalf of the OSI SAF sea-ice team, we are happy to present the new OSI SAF Sea Ice Index v2.1. The index consists of both the sea-ice extent and sea-ice area information and is provided as global, hemispheric, and regional data.
So far, 2020 is one of the years we have measured the least sea ice in the Arctic. In October, almost four million square kilometers of ice are missing compared to what was common in the 80s. This corresponds to an area ten times the size of Norway.