

Arctic sea ice reaches the sixth-lowest summer extent since observations began nearly 40 years ago. Harsh ice conditions in the Canadian Archipelago and at the North Pole impeded the safe navigation of vessels.

As days are getting shorter across the Arctic the decline of sea ice has begun to slow down and the annual end-of-summer minimum is expected over the coming days. The center of the Arctic Ocean has already begun to refreeze while the edges of the sea ice are still experiencing limited melting.

Arctic sea ice extent, which traditionally hits its lowest figure during the middle of September, will likely come in at below 4.4 million square kilometers, making it the sixth-lowest since satellite observations began in 1979, researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) confirmed.

This year’s ice melt follows the pattern seen over the past few years and will sit slightly below the figure of 2017 when ice cover had decreased to 4.7 million square kilometers. "The latest results confirm the worrying declining sea-ice trend in the Arctic, which we have witnessed for more than a decade," says Professor Christian Haas, Head of the Sea Ice Physics Section at the AWI.





Harsh Ice Conditions in Canada

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in the United States also released figures on the ice extent minimum. As researchers use varying methods to interpret satellite data ice extent figures can differ slightly between different institutes. Researchers at NSIDC measured an ice extent of 4.6 million square kilometers on September 17 and indicated that a seasonal minimum "was imminent." Ice coverage was 1.69 million square kilometers below the long-term average from 1981-2010. The Arctic saw an unusually slow decline in ice during the month of July when cooler temperatures prevailed.