Colors show the age of sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean. The darkest blue areas on the map show seasonal or first-year ice, which formed during the most recent winter. White areas show where ice is more than four years old. Ice thickness is strongly correlated with ice age.

Sep 30, 2019 · This visualization shows the age of the Arctic sea ice between 1984 and 2019. Younger sea ice, or first-year ice, is shown in a dark shade of blue while the ice that is four years old or older is shown as white.

Each monthly map shows how much of the Arctic Ocean is covered by sea ice, and what age the ice is. The sea ice is color-coded to indicate whether it is young, thin ice (less than a year old), or older, thicker ice. The corresponding bar graph is also color-coded to …

Jan 17, 2025 · The age of sea ice is also important. Ice that has accumulated over many years is generally thicker and stronger than younger ice. A loss of older ice suggests the Arctic ice cover is getting thinner. 2 Thinner ice is more likely to melt even more.

A graph and an animated time series showing the annual Arctic sea ice minimum extent each September since 1979, derived from satellite observations.

Monthly average sea ice extent (light blue) for (a) March 2024, and (b) September 2024; the median extent for 1991-2020 is shown by the dark blue contour. (c) September sea ice age extent. In June, the overall rate of retreat in ice extent was near-average, but then accelerated in July and August.

Mar 6, 2025 · In the Arctic, the annual minimum sea ice extent occurs in September and the annual sea ice maximum extent occurs in March. In the Antarctic, the minimum extent occurs in February and the maximum occurs in September.

This data set provides weekly estimates of sea ice age for the Arctic Ocean derived from remotely sensed sea ice motion and sea ice extent. For more recent data, see the Quicklook Arctic Weekly EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age data product (https://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0749).

May 14, 2024 · Arctic sea ice is oldest and thickest in these regions today, and will likely persist there the longest. This animation shows early September sea ice age, 2000-2023. Areas with old, thick sea ice (white) in recent years are likely the same areas where sea ice will persist in a warmer future. Animation by Climate.gov based on data from NSIDC.

Sea ice shows up as various shades of grey and open ocean as blue. Each image is a snapshot of sea ice cover each day with the date shown in the lower part of each image.