Earth ID: 4811

Arctic Sea Ice Maximum 2020

Visualizations by Trent L. Schindler Released on March 21, 2020

There is a newer version of this story located here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4878

After growing through the fall and winter, sea ice in the Arctic appears to have reached its annual maximum extent. The image above shows the ice extent—defined as the total area in which the ice concentration is at least 15 percent—at its 2020 maximum, which occurred on March 5. On this day the extent of the Arctic sea ice cover peaked at 15.05 million square kilometers (5.81 million square miles). While this maximum was the largest since 2013, it remained 590,000 square kilometers (230,000 square miles) below the average maximum for the 1981-2010 period.

Newer Version

Visualization Credits

Trent L. Schindler (USRA): Lead Visualizer
Kathryn Mersmann (USRA): Lead Producer
Kathryn Hansen (SSAI): Producer

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

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Data Used:

Terra and Aqua/MODIS/Blue Marble: Next Generation also referred to as: BMNG

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/

Credit:
The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).

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SHIZUKU (GCOM-W1)/AMSR2/10 km Daily Sea Ice Concentration

Observed Data - Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Credit:
AMSR2 data courtesy of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

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SHIZUKU (GCOM-W1)/AMSR2/10 km Daily 89 GHz Brightness Temperature

Observed Data - Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Credit:
AMSR2 data courtesy of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

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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.

Keywords:
DLESE >> Cryology
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Cryosphere
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Cryosphere >> Sea Ice
GCMD >> Location >> Arctic Ocean
SVS >> Hydrosphere >> Sea Ice
SVS >> Arctic Circle
NASA Science >> Earth
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Climate Indicators >> Cryospheric Indicators >> Sea Ice Concentration

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0