Arctic Sea Ice at Minimum Extent - 2022
By LT Jacquelyn Putnam, NOAA
U.S. National Ice Center
September 26, 2022
The U.S. National Ice Center (USNIC) has determined the 2022 minimum Arctic sea ice extent occurred in mid-September 2022 with an area of 4.72 million square kilometers based on analysis from the USNIC’s Interactive Multisensor Snow and Ice Mapping System (IMS), used in the Multisensor Analyzed Sea Ice Extent (MASIE) product, jointly created with the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
Analyses for the 2022 melt season indicated a minimum 3-day average of 4.72 million square kilometers between 17 September and 19 September. USNIC minimum ice extent is determined based on a 3-day average to account for short-term spatial variability in the sea ice edge location. The 2022 Arctic sea ice extent minimum is the sixth largest recorded since 2006 when this metric from IMS was first tracked consistently. The 2022 minimum occurred 2 days after the 17 year average minimum date of 16 September.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), for comparison, tentatively announced on 22 September that the Arctic minimum had occurred on 18 September at 4.67 million square kilometers. This estimate, slightly different from the USNIC estimate, is based on a 25-kilometer resolution ice concentration product from satellite microwave radiometers. USNIC’s IMS uses a variety of different satellite observations which are interpreted by an analyst to determine the presence of ice at a 1km resolution. The slight differences also stem from the varying missions of each institution, the methodology, and the spatial resolution of the data sources used to identify the presence of sea ice.
To access daily products, weekly products, archival data and much more of USNIC data in various formats, visit the USNIC webpage at: https://usicecenter.gov/Products
For more information, please contact:
National Ice Center
Command Duty Officer
Voice: (301) 943-6977
E-mail: nic.cdo@noaa.gov
Twitter: @usnatice
Facebook: @usnatice
The U.S. National Ice Center is a tri-agency center operated by the Navy, NOAA, and Coast Guard and provides global to tactical scale ice and snow products, ice forecasting, and related environmental intelligence services for the United States government.
