Arctic Sea Ice Maximum 2022

  • Released Tuesday, March 22, 2022
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Arctic sea ice maximum, February 25, 2022

Arctic sea ice maximum, February 25, 2022

After growing through the fall and winter, sea ice in the Arctic appears to have reached its annual maximum extent. The image above shows the ice extent—defined as the total area in which the ice concentration is at least 15 percent—at its 2022 maximum, which occurred on February 25, tying with 2015 for the third earliest maximum on record. On this day the extent of the Arctic sea ice cover peaked at 14.88 million square kilometers (5.75 million square miles), making it the tenth lowest yearly maximum extent on record.

Animation of arctic sea ice from the September 16, 2021 minimum to the the February 25, 2022 maximum

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NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Tuesday, March 22, 2022.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 11:44 AM EDT.

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