Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Extent for 2010

  • Released Wednesday, September 29, 2010
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Sea ice is frozen seawater floating on the surface of the ocean. Some sea ice is semi-permanent, persisting from year to year, and some is seasonal, melting and refreezing from season to season. The sea ice cover reaches its minimum extent at the end of each summer and the remaining ice is called the perennial ice cover.

In this animation, the Arctic sea ice and seasonal land cover change progress through time, from March 31, 2010 when sea ice in the Arctic was at its maximum extent, through September 19, 2010, when it was at its minimum. The blueish white color of the sea ice is derived from a 3-day running maximum of the AMSR-E 89 GHz brightness temperature. Over the terrain, monthly data from the seasonal Blue Marble Next Generation fades slowly from month to month.

Arctic sea ice minimum extent for 2010

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Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).

This page was originally published on Wednesday, September 29, 2010.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:54 PM EDT.

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