The Arctic has lost nearly 95% of its oldest ice cover since 1984, according to NASA.
The ice in the Arctic grows and shrinks throughout the year, and is made up of seasonal and perennial ice. The permanent sea ice that has built up over the years tends to be thicker and more vulnerable to melting away in summer than newer seasonal ice.
According to scientists at NASA, the area covered by Arctic sea ice for at least four years has decreased from 1,860,000 square kilometers in September 1984 to 110,000 square kilometers in September 2016.
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Arctic sea ice reaches a minimum every September. September Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 13.3% per decade, compared with the 1981 to 2010 average.
In the view below from NASA of data from huts, weather stations, satellites and computer models, the age of the ice is indicated by shades from blue-gray for the youngest ice to white for the oldest.
Rising temperatures in the Arctic are affecting climate and snow cover as well as the amount of sea ice, and this year was the second lowest recorded.
Ketil Isaksen from the Norwegian Institute of Metrology said that the average temperature in Longyearbyen, the main settlement in Svalbard, Norway, is expected to be around 0 degrees Celsius with just over a month left in the year.
“This is a bit of a shock,” said Isaksen. “If you had asked me five or 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have seen those numbers in 2016.”
This graph shows the average monthly Arctic sea ice rate in September since 1979, derived from satellite observation.
The average annual average for Svalbard, an island group halfway between the North Pole and mainland Norway, is less than 6.7 C and the warmest year to date was 2006, when the average temperature in Svalbard was less than 1.8 C, Isaksen said.
“Svalbard is a great place to show what’s happening in the Arctic at the moment,” he said, noting that each of the past 73 months has been warmer than in the Arctic. average.
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