The previous record low, set in 2004, was more than half a million square kilometers greater than this year’s record. And it broke the prior record low for May by a region larger than California, although not quite as large as Texas.
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Scientists warn that the amount of sea ice in the Arctic is continuing to dwindle this year because of global warming.
The area of the Arctic that is covered in ice is set to reach a record low this summer after falling to a level that is unprecedented for this time of year.
According to the NSIDC, the daily extent of sea ice levels in May were two to four weeks ahead of those observed in 2012, which are considered to be the lowest September extent on record.
This May, sea ice extents were more than a million square kilometers (or the size of three Californias) less than the average for the month between 1981 and 2010. The previous record September low was set in 2012. Going into the truly warm months of the year, then, the ice is in a uniquely weak state.
Back in mid-May, unusually warm conditions, and shrinking sea ice coverage, prompted Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center to predict that “the Arctic is going to go through hell this year”.
While these numbers are still tentative given that the center used preliminary satellite data, the figures were backed up by other data sources. What we are seeing now puts 2016 well ahead of the declines seen in 2012.
The NSIDC reported on Tuesday that sea ice extent remains below average in the Kara and Barents seas, which continues a pattern seen last winter through this spring. That opaque white ice is “multiyear ice”, which is like a sea-ice glacier that doesn’t melt over the summer and helps keep local ocean temps low.
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Regarding the prospects for setting an all-time record sea ice minimum at the end of the summer, Serreze told Mashable, “We are starting off definitely on a bad footing here”. Pockets of the Arctic had temperatures even more anomalously high than that. “However, this is also part and parcel of a longer trend … we’ve always known that the Arctic would be the place most sensitive to climate change, and that’s what we’re seeing”.
