Arctic Ice Cover Today. Much of the arctic ice is wind blown pieces of a giant jig-saw puzzle of ice pieces that are both gathered and scattered by wind. Thin sea ice occurs during the freezing season.
We provide an update during the first week of each month or more frequently as conditions warrant. To maintain a healthy perennial ice cover in the Arctic its critical that the ice stays out of warmer waters where it might melt in summer. Our sea-ice density measurements are based on over 3000 km of high-resolution collocated airborne sea-ice and snow thickness and freeboard measurements in 2017 and 2019.
Currently 28 of Arctic basin sea ice is multi-year ice thicker than seasonal ice.
1000000 sq km with 100 ice cover or 2000000 km sq of 15 ice. But tracing it from the March maximum to the September minimum provides a useful measure of the health of the ice cover and the health of the ice cover is not good he said. The maps below show the extent of sea ice in the Northern Hemisphere around the North Pole. Sea ice map calculated from AMSR2 data using the ARTIST sea ice algorithm ASI 5.
