This plot shows average sea level pressure in the Arctic in millibars for August 2022.

During the second half of August, ice loss was mostly in the East Siberian Sea and the northern Chukchi Sea. The rate of decline for Arctic sea ice extent was near average for most of the month at about 60,000 square kilometers (23,000 square miles) per day, but briefly increased late in the month to near 85,000 square kilometers (33,000 square miles) per day. On the Atlantic side, the ice edge remained north of Svalbard and Franz Josef Land, continuing the pattern seen for most of the season. These features are much further north than is typical. As seen in the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) imagery, areas of low concentration ice that started to develop poleward of 85 degrees North in July developed into areas of open water within the pack ice, or polynyas (Figure 1b). Extent remained particularly low in the Laptev and Chukchi Seas.

Ice extent tracked below the interdecile range of the satellite record through the month, and the total ice loss through the month was 1.79 million square kilometers (691,000 square miles).

Sea ice concentration data are from Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) imagery.Īverage Arctic sea ice extent for August 2022 was 5.99 million square kilometers (2.31 million square miles), ranking thirteenth lowest in the satellite record (Figure 1a) and 1.21 million square kilometers (467,000 square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average. This map shows open water within the ice pack, known as a polynya, poleward of 85 degrees North.

Us open map 2021