A newer version of this visualization is available.
Sea Ice Yearly Minimum with Graph Overlay 1979-2008
The continued significant reduction in the extent of the summer sea ice cover is a dramatic illustration of the pronounced impact increased global temperatures are having on the Arctic regions. There has also been a significant reduction in the relative amount of older, thicker ice. Satellite-based passive microwave images of the sea ice cover have provided a reliable tool for continuously monitoring changes in the extent of the Arctic ice cover since 1979. The ice parameters derived from satellite ice concentration data that are most relevant to climate change studies are sea ice extent and ice area. This visualization shows ice extent in the background and ice area in the foreground. Ice extent is defined here as the integrated sum of the areas of data elements (pixels) with at least 15% ice concentration while ice area is the integrated sum of the products of the area of each pixel and the corresponding ice concentration. Ice extent provides information about how far south (or north) the ice extends in winter and how far north (or south) it retreats toward the continent in the summer while the ice area provides the total area actually covered by sea ice which is useful for estimating the total volume and therefore mass, given the average ice thickness. For more information about these ice datasets, see The Journal of Geophysical Research VOL. 113, C02S07, doi:10.1029/2007JC004257, 2008
Annual Arctic Sea Ice Minimum from 1979 to 2008.
Overlay sequence: graph showing annual trend from 1979 to 2008.
Minimum Sea Ice Sequence with Date Overlay from 1979 to 2008.
Minimum Sea Ice Sequence from 1979 to 2008. This image is the Arctic sea ice minimum area during the week of September 12, 2008.
Date Overlay from 1979 to 2008.
21 September 1979 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1979
05 September 1980 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1980
10 September 1981 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1981
17 September 1982 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1982
18 September 1983 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1983
16 September 1984 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1984
07 September 1985 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1985
06 September 1986 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1986
02 September 1987 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1987
12 September 1988 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1988
23 September 1989 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1989
19 September 1990 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1990
16 September 1991 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1991
04 September 1992 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1992
11 September 1993 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1993
05 September 1994 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1994
01 October 1995 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1995
10 September 1996 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1996
19 September 1997 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1997
12 September 1998 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1998
11 September 1999 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 1999
11 September 2000 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 2000
19 September 2001 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 2001
12 September 2002 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 2002
11 September 2003 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 2003
11 September 2004 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 2004
21 September 2005 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 2005
14 September 2006 Arctic sea ice minimum area for 2006
14 September 2007 Arctic sea ice minimum
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Thanks to Rob Gerston (GSFC) for providing the data.
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Animators
- Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC)
- Greg Shirah (NASA/GSFC)
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Visualizer
- Cindy Starr (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
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Scientist
- Josefino Comiso (NASA/GSFC)
Release date
This page was originally published on Wednesday, October 29, 2008.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:55 PM EDT.
Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Papers used in this visualization
Comiso, J. C., C. L. Parkinson, R. Gersten, and L. Stock, 2008: Accelerated decline in the Arctic sea ice cover. Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L01703, doi:10.1029/2007GL031972.
Datasets used in this visualization
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[DMSP: SSM/I]
ID: 11Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Special Sensor Microwave Imager
See all pages that use this dataset -
Comiso's September Minimum Sea Ice Concentration
ID: 540
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.
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