Smallest Extent of Winter Sea Ice Ever Measured in the Arctic

Spring is coming, even to the North Pole. But winter is summarised by alarm bells – never before has ice cover peaked at such a low level as this season, according to the Danish weather agency DMI.

It is now the change of season in both the Arctic and Antarctic. The North Pole’s ice has just reached its annual maximum, before the spring sun starts to wear it down. Around the South Pole, on the other hand, summer is coming to an end and the ice is growing again.

But in both cases, ice volumes are low, in the case of the North Pole even ‘setting a new record as the smallest extent of winter sea ice ever measured’, DMI writes in a press release. ‘March’s average extent was measured at 14 million square kilometres, 140,000 less than the previous record from 2018’.

Vicious circle

The weather agency notes that the reduction is equivalent to an entire UK in ice area. And Jacob L Høyer, head of DMI’s satellite and Arctic unit, warns that this could easily become a vicious circle.

‘The record low extent could have major consequences for the summer. Less sea ice means more open water, which with its dark colour absorbs more heat from the sun,’ he says in the press release.

‘Low extent can create a self-reinforcing effect and produce a warm summer.’

In Antarctica, the picture is slightly brighter. After the Southern Hemisphere summer, sea ice there reached the seasonal minimum on 25 February. It then covered 1.87 million square kilometres, or about four square miles of Sweden. This is the seventh seasonal minimum since satellite measurements began in 1978.

Summers without ice

But Adrian Lema, head of a climate research unit at the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), is confident that more records are to come.

‘Human-induced global warming is the main reason why sea ice has been shrinking in recent decades. Lack of sea ice amplifies warming even more, so we are in a negative spiral,’ he said in the press release.

‘We expect summers with virtually no sea ice around Greenland within 25 years.’