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[music builds]  Text-on-screen: The melt season is here for Arctic sea ice.

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Every year, this frozen, floating pack of sea water grows in the winter and shrinks in the summer,

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pulsing with ocean and wind currents and responding to changes in weather.

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On March 6, Arctic sea ice appeared to reach its maximum extent for the season

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At 14.62 million square kilometers, it’s the fifth lowest in the satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

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Compared to the 1981-2010 average the March sea ice pack has lost about a million square kilometers, 400,000 square miles

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an area the size of Texas and Arizona put together.

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The ice pack is also getting thinner, as measured by field studies and satellites like NASA’s ICESat-2,

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and is more susceptible to summer melting.

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Generally speaking, warming global temperatures are the primary drivers of the change

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but regional factors and weather events also play a role.

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New research suggests atmospheric rivers, the same phenomena that have been drenching the U.S. west coast recently,

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are transporting more heat into the Arctic north of Europe and contributing to ice loss.

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Sea ice isn’t just important in the Arctic.

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It influences the energy budget of our planet and affects weather patterns throughout the world.

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[NASA logo. Music fades.]