The annual Arctic slush cup has begun to sizzle in earnest, with the worst July coverage yet reported by satellite monitoring.
Damaged by the early start to the melt season and then basked in much warmer air than normal, Arctic sea ice has shrunk so fast during the past few weeks that it's now dipped into record minimum territory for the time of year, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
"Arctic sea ice extent declined at a rapid pace through the first half of July, and is now tracking below the year 2007, which saw the record minimum September extent," the NSIDC reported in its latest sea ice update.
As of July 17, the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by ice had shrunk to 2.92 million square miles -- the smallest extent ever seen for mid-July since satellite monitoring began in the 1970s. It's 865,000 square miles below the average cover for that date seen between 1979 and 2000. A frozen polar bear-and-seal habitat larger than Alaska and California combined has been transformed into mostly open water.
Although maps generated by satellite analysis show the pack has retreated far north from the shores of Alaska's Beaufort and Chukchi seas, the extent of sea ice was particularly low in the Barents, Kara, and Laptev seas of the far northern Atlantic Ocean, and along Canada in Hudson and Baffin bays, the NSIDC reported.
"During the first half of July, a high-pressure cell persisted over the northern Beaufort Sea, as it did in June, and is linked to the above-average air temperatures over much of the Arctic Ocean," the NSIDC report explained. "To date in July, air temperatures over the North Pole were (11 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than normal."
For more details and analysis, plus NSIDC's usual collection of easy-to-read charts and maps, go to the sea ice portal.