How much ice has the Arctic lost?

From the thin ice shield covering most of the Arctic Ocean to the mile-thick mantle of the polar ice sheets, ice losses have soared from about 760 billion tons per year in the 1990s to more than 1.2 trillion tons per year in the 2010s, a new study released Monday shows.

When did the Arctic ice start to melt?

2002
Instead, a pattern of steep Arctic sea ice decline began in 2002. The AO likely triggered a phase of accelerated melt that continued into the next decade because of unusually warm Arctic air temperatures. Arctic ice extent has dropped steeply since 2002.

How much of the Arctic is ice?

In March 1985, sea ice more than four years old comprised 33 percent of the Arctic Ocean ice pack. In March 2020, equally old ice comprised just 4.4 percent of the ice pack. Read more in the Arctic Report Card: Update for 2020. Explore this interactive graph: Click and drag to display different parts of the graph.

What was the Arctic sea ice extent in September 2019?

Arctic sea ice extent for September 2019 was 4.32 million square kilometers (1.67 million square miles). The magenta line shows the 1981 to 2010 average extent for that month. Sea Ice Index data. About the data Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center High-resolution image Figure 1b.

Where does Arctic sea ice rank in the world?

The average extent ranks ninth lowest in the satellite record, which began in 1979. Regionally, extent at the end of the month was below average on the Pacific side in the Bering sea and on the Atlantic side in the northern Barents Sea and well south of the Arctic in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

How much of the Arctic sea ice has been lost?

In total, 1.70 million square kilometers (656,000 square miles) of ice were lost during August 2019. The linear rate of sea ice decline for August from 1979 to 2019 is 76,200 square kilometers (29,400 square miles) per year, or 10.59 percent per decade relative to the 1981 to 2010 average.

Where are the Exclusive Economic Zones in the Arctic?

This map show the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) within the Arctic: Canada (purple), Greenland (orange), Iceland (green), Norway (turquoise), Russia (light blue), and USA (dark blue). As sea ice reduces there will be more opportunity for ice to drift from one EEZ to another, which has implications for the potential spread of pollutants.

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