Arctic Has Lost Enough Ice To Cover Canada And Alaska

Arctic Has Lost Enough Ice To Cover Canada And Alaska

The official end of the Arctic Ocean melt season could come any time now, but the sea ice that covers the North Polar region has already smashed the previous record low for end-of-summer ice area set in 2007.

Back then, a combination of warm temperatures and ice-dispersing winds left just 1.61 million square miles of ice cover — but that meltback was surpassed in late August this year, and by now, the ice extent has dropped by more than 35 percent below the 2007 record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Since March, according to one calculation, the amount of ice that has disappeared is equal to the areas of Alaska and Canada, combined.

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