Arctic Sea Ice Extent Only 10th Lowest

NSIDC says that the Arctic's sea ice extent minimum has been reached for the year, 4.60 million square kilometers on Sept 12th. That's about the area of the European Union, and only tenth lowest since satellite records began back in November 1978. 

"This year’s minimum is yet another low extent in a changed Arctic," said senior scientist Walt Meier. "While this year’s minimum is in line with recent years, it is far lower than anything we saw in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s.”

Here's a quick reminder of what "extent" means versus "area":

Sea ice area is the total region covered by ice. Extent is the total region with at least 15 percent sea ice cover. NSIDC usually reports extent, which gives higher values than area.

And the Antarctic has likely reached its maximum for the winter down there:

In the Antarctic, sea ice extent has been tracking near record low levels for most of this growth season, most likely reaching its maximum extent on September 14 at 17.59 million square kilometers (6.79 million square miles). If this maximum date holds, this will be the third lowest Antarctic sea ice maximum on record. 

Here's NSIDC's own story and an animation for the Arctic. Here's an image I asked Perplexity AI to generate: "an image of vanishing sea ice."

Image by Perplexity AI