Antarctic Sea Ice Season Finishes With 2nd-Lowest Extent In 46-Year Instrumental Record

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. On the bright side, it's not as bad as last year.

Simply worse than every other year on record. - OK


Figure 1a. The map on the left shows Antarctic sea ice extent for September 19, 2024, which was 17.16 million square kilometers (6.63 million square miles). The orange line shows the 1981 to 2010 average extent for that day. Figure 1b. The map on the right compares Antarctic sea ice extent for September 19, 2024, in blue, with the record low maximum from last year on September 10, 2023, in white. — Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center


Figure 2. The graph above shows Antarctic sea ice extent as of September 19, 2024, along with daily ice extent data for four previous years and the record-high maximum year. 2024 is shown in blue, 2023 in green (record-low maximum), 2022 in orange, 2021 in brown, 2020 in magenta, and 2014 in dashed brown. The 1981 to 2010 median is in dark gray. The gray areas around the median line show the interquartile and interdecile ranges of the data. — Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center