Arctic Sea Ice Extent 1989-2010
Sea ice extent is presented for the Northern Hemisphere and for nine northern regions (the seas of Okhotsk and Japan, the Bering Sea, Hudson Bay, Baffin Bay/Davis Strait, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Greenland Sea, the Kara and Barents seas, the Arctic Ocean, and the Canadian Archipelago, as defined in Parkinson and Cavalieri (2008)) for the years 1989-2010. Move your mouse over the image below to view the nine main sea ice producing regions in the Northern Hemisphere. Click on each coloured region to view a graph showing the seasonal change in extent of sea ice in that area for each year from 1989 to 2010. You will also see a second graph showing the monthly sea ice extent and a third graph showing the relative monthly anomaly in sea ice extent for each month based on the mean monthly sea ice extent from 1989 to 2010. Alternatively, follow the links below the image to see the time series plots for all regions together.
Graphs of monthly extent for all regions
Graphs of seasonal extent for all regions
Graphs of monthly anomaly for all regions
Trends in Canada's sea ice since the 1960's are also summarized in EnviroStats, an on-line publication of Statistics Canada, Environment Canada, and Natural Resources Canada.
Material for this section was provided and edited by Wenxia Tan, Department of Geography, University of Waterloo, November 2011.