Minimum Sea Ice Extent (WMS)

  • Released Friday, July 1, 2005
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Each year, the ice covering the Arctic Ocean grows during the northern hemisphere winter and shrinks with the northern hemisphere summer. The ice extent is usually greatest during the month of March and is the least during the month of September. This image shows the average minimum extent of sea ice over the northern hemisphere during the month of September over 24 seasons, from 1979 - 2002. The red line shows the area where the average sea ice concentration is 15%.

These images show the minimum extent of sea ice in the northern hemisphere. There are several images available, including a transparent overlay, a background image from NASA's Blue Marble, and a composite image.This product is available through our Web Map Service.

These images show the minimum extent of sea ice in the northern hemisphere. There are several images available, including a transparent overlay, a background image from NASA's Blue Marble, and a composite image.

This product is available through our Web Map Service.

Legend for the September minimum sea ice extent.

Legend for the September minimum sea ice extent.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Friday, July 1, 2005.
This page was last updated on Sunday, November 12, 2023 at 10:00 PM EST.

Series

This visualization can be found in the following series:

Datasets used in this visualization

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.