August 26th, 2018: Arctic sea ice extent ***********************
No endless summer in the Arctic
With the waning of Arctic summer, the seasonal decrease in sea ice extent has slowed. At this time of the year, the extent is the highest it has been since 2014. Nevertheless, sea ice extent remains well below the interdecile range (lowest 10 percent for ice extent years). The minimum is expected to be one of the ten lowest in the satellite record.
Overview of conditions
Arctic sea ice extent for August 2018 averaged 5.61 million square kilometers (2.17 million square miles). This was 1.59 million square kilometers (614,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 long-term average sea ice extent, and 890,000 square kilometers (344,000 square miles) above the record low for the month set in August 2012. August 2018 was the seventh lowest August extent in the satellite record, but the highest August extent since 2014.
At the end of the month, sea ice extent stood at 4.97 million square kilometers (1.92 million square miles). Sea ice extent remained low along the coastal seas of the Arctic Ocean with the exception of the East Siberian Sea. The Northern Sea Route nevertheless appears to be navigable. Low sea ice concentrations persist in the northern Beaufort and Laptev Seas; these areas may still retreat further north before the melt season ends. The Northwest Passage is still choked with ice and is likely to remain so.
Image courtesy of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder (https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/). Data source see http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/about-the-data/