About the 2022 Artic Summer Sea Ice.

There’s no way to make this pleasant; the Arctic Summer Sea Ice tied for the tenth lowest on record.

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According to satellite observations, Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum extent (lowest amount of ice for the year) on Sept. 18, 2022. The ice cover shrank to an area of 4.67 million square kilometers (1.80 million square miles) this year, roughly 1.55 million square kilometers (598,000 square miles) below the 1981-2010 average minimum of 6.22 million square kilometers (2.40 million square miles).

The average September minimum extent record shows significant declines since satellites began measuring consistently in 1978. The last 15 years (2007 to 2021) are the lowest 15 minimum extents in the 43-year satellite record.

This visualization, created at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, shows data provided by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), acquired by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) instrument aboard JAXA’s Global Change Observation Mission 1st-Water “SHIZUKU” (GCOM-W1) satellite.

Music: “Celestial Vault” from Universal Production Music

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Kathleen Gaeta (GSFC AIMMS): Lead Producer

Trent L. Schindler (USRA): Lead Animator

Roberto Molar (KBR): Lead Writer

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As I said, a sorry tale for which there is no good news. I wish there were!