Earth  ID: 10828

Arctic Sea Ice 2011 Minimum

Released on September 15, 2011
Sea ice in the Arctic ocean declines from its near-maximum state in early spring 2011 through the summer and up until the summer minimum of Sept. 9, 2011, in this visualization of data collected by the AMSR-E instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite. Sea ice goes through this shrink-and-swell rhythm every year, but since consistent satellite observations began in 1979, both the annual minimum at the end of summer and the annual maximum at the end of winter continue to decline in area and thickness.

Arctic sea ice extent on Sept. 9 was 4.33 million square kilometers (1.67 million square miles), placing 2011 as the second lowest minimum ice extent on record. Ice extent was 2.43 million square kilometers (938,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.

Below two versions of the AMSR-E visualization is a video featuring NASA Cryosphere Program Manager Tom Wagner, who shares his insights on the 2011 minimum.

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Arctic sea ice from March 7 to September 9, 2011.
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Arctic sea ice from March 7 to September 9, 2011, ending with a comparison of the 30-year average minimum extent (in yellow) and the Northwest Passage (shown in red.)
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In a taped version of a live broadcast, NASA Cryosphere Program Manager Tom Wagner shares his insights on the 2011 minimum.

For complete transcript, click here.

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Dates with alpha channel
 

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Credits

Trent L. Schindler (UMBC): Lead Animator
Cindy Starr (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Animator
Jefferson Beck (USRA): Producer
Malissa Reyes (USRA): Producer
Patrick Lynch (Wyle Information Systems): Writer
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10828

Data Used:
Aqua/AMSR-E
For more information, please click http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/AMSR/
view all stories where this data set is used
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.

This item is part of this series:
Narrated Movies

Keywords:
SVS >> Climate
SVS >> HDTV
SVS >> Sea Ice
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Oceans
GCMD >> Location >> Arctic
DLESE >> Narrated
NASA Science >> Earth

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0