Sea Ice Bulletin – September 2025
Arctic and Global Sea Ice Bulletin – April 2025
Key takeaways Arctic sea ice at one of the lowest extents Sea ice extent in the north polar region has seen a near breaking record-low in the first quarter of 2025. The maximum area occupied by sea ice has fallen to 13.98 million km² – a value that follows closely the previous record lows of […]
Antarctic Sea Ice Bulletin March 2025
Key takeaways Antarctic Antarctic Sea Ice Minimum Extent Figure 1. Left: Antarctic sea ice extent (red) for 25 February 2025. The black line represents the 1993-2010 long-term average (climatology) for the same day of the year. Right: The 1993-2025 daily Antarctic Sea ice extent. Data: Global 1/12° forecasting and reanalysis systems. * Antarctic sea ice extent […]
Sea Ice Bulletin September 2024
Key takeaways Arctic Antarctic 2024 has yet seen a drastic loss in sea ice at global scale – caused by major melting occurring in the past years during the northern hemisphere spring (in the Arctic), and the significant lack of sea ice growth during the southern hemisphere autumn (in the Southern Ocean). The global sea […]
Sea Ice Bulletin July 2024
Key take-aways Sea Ice Extent Antarctic Sea Ice Extent Arctic Sea ice Volume Antarctic Sea ice Volume Global Sea ice Extent and Volume Definitions: Notes: This Mercator Ocean bulletin was developed by Clement Bricaud, Gilles Garric, and Gratianne Quade. Products and data used: GLORYS12V1 global ocean eddy-resolving (1/12° horizontal resolution, 50 vertical levels) reanalysis covering […]
Arctic Sea Ice Bulletin March 2024
Key take-aways Sea Ice Extent On the 22nd of February 2024, the Arctic Sea ice concentration (figure 1 red line) was noticeably below the long-term average between 1993 and 2010 (figure 1 black line) for the same date in the year. Compared to the 1993-2010 period, large areas of sea ice cover are missing, particularly […]
Arctic Sea Ice Bulletin March 2024
Key take-aways Sea ice extent in the Arctic is likely to have reached its annual maximum extent on 22 February, 4 % below the long-term average (1993-2010). Sea Ice volume is currently at 15.85 thousand km³, almost half the volume (45%) of winter ice has been lost compared with long-term average (1993-2010). February and early […]
Sea Ice in the Arctic continues to decline
Key take-aways: This year there was a drastic drop in sea ice on a global scale caused by a combination of the now usual major melting during the northern hemisphere spring in the Arctic, and the significant lack of sea ice growth during the southern hemisphere autumn in the Antarctic. On the 12th of September […]
Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches Lows Never Before Observed
Key take-aways: This year there was a drastic drop in sea ice on a global scale caused by a combination of the now usual major melting during the northern hemisphere spring in the Arctic, and the significant lack of sea ice growth during the southern hemisphere autumn in the Antarctic. Antarctic sea ice reached the […]
Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches Lows Never Before Observed
Key take-aways: This year there was a drastic drop in sea ice on a global scale caused by a combination of the now usual major melting during the northern hemisphere spring in the Arctic, and the significant lack of sea ice growth during the southern hemisphere autumn in the Antarctic. Antarctic sea ice reached the […]