Global Outlook for Ice & Snow

Trends in sea ice Passive microwave sensors on satellites have monitored the extent of the sea-ice cover since 1978 2 . This technique is widely used to investigate fluctuations in ice extent over the seasons, variability between years, and long- term trends. The seasonal variation of ice extent is much greater in the Antarctic where there is about six times as much ice in winter as in summer. Currently, in the Arctic, ice approximately doubles from summer to winter. Figure 5.3 shows the average minimum and maximum extents of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice in recent decades.

minimum ice extents, with a rate of decrease of 2.5 per cent per decade for March and 8.9 per cent per decade for September 5 – 7 (Figure 5.4). There are major regional differences (Figure 5.5), with the strongest decline in ice extent observed for the Greenland Sea (10.6 per cent per decade). The small- est decreases of annual mean sea-ice extent were found in the Arctic Ocean, the Canadian Archipelago and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In the marginal Arctic seas off Si- beria (the Kara, Laptev, East Siberian and Chukchi Seas) a slight negative, but not significant, trend in ice extent was observed between 1900 and 2000 8 . Figure 5.6 compares the Arctic sea-ice extent in Septem- ber for the years 1982 (the record maximum since 1979) and 2005 (the record minimum). The ice extent was 7.5

Northern Hemisphere trends

Despite considerable year-to-year variability, significant negative trends are apparent in both maximum and

Ice extent anomaly (million km 2 )

Northern Hemisphere Whole N Hemisphere

-3.2%

1.5

March September

Greenland Sea

-10.6

1

Baffin Bay

-8.6 -7.4 -6.0 -5.0 -1.8 -1.3 -0.6 -0.4

Sea of Okhotsk Kara-Barents Sea

0.5

Hudson Bay Bering Sea Arctic Ocean

0

-0.5

Gulf of St Lawrence Canadian Archipelago

-1

Change in annual mean sea ice extent (% per decade)

1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 -1.5

Figure 5.4: Time series of the difference in Arctic sea-ice extent in March (maximum) and September (minimum) from the mean values for the time period 1979–2006. Based on a linear least squares regression, the rate of decrease in March and Septem- ber was 2.5% per decade and 8.9% per decade, respectively. Source: Data courtesy of National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)

Figure 5.5: Regional changes in Arctic annual mean sea-ice ex- tent (% per decade) for the period 1979–2004. Source: Data courtesy of NASA 2007a 9

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GLOBAL OUTLOOK FOR ICE AND SNOW