Climate.gov Data Snapshots: Arctic Sea Ice Age
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Version: View help for Version V2
| Name | File Type | Size | Last Modified |
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| data | 06/24/2025 09:34:PM | ||
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application/pdf | 1.2 MB | 06/18/2025 05:43:PM |
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application/pdf | 22.1 MB | 06/18/2025 05:43:PM |
Project Citation:
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Climate.gov Data Snapshots: Arctic Sea Ice Age. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-06-24. https://doi.org/10.3886/E233443V2
Project Description
Project Title:
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Climate.gov Data Snapshots: Arctic Sea Ice Age
Summary:
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This upload includes two additional files:
* Arctic Sea Ice Age _NOAA Climate.gov.pdf is a screenshot of the main Climate.gov site for these snapshots (https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/data-snapshots/data-source/arctic-sea-ice-age )
* Cimate_gov_ Data Snapshots.pdf is a screenshot of the data download page for the full-resolution files.
Q: How has the age of Arctic Sea Ice changed over time?
A: Since
the late 1900s, Arctic sea ice has thinned, and less sea ice has
persisted in the Arctic over multiple melt seasons. The trend toward
younger, thinner sea ice over time reflects warming temperatures in the
Arctic. As older ice is thicker than younger ice, the reduced area of
old ice also indicates a reduction in the total volume of ice.
Q: Where do these measurements come from?
A: Scientists
estimate the age of sea ice by combining satellite observations of ice
locations and extent with buoy data on winds and motion.
Q: What do the colors mean?
A: Colors
show the age of sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean. The darkest blue
areas on the map show seasonal or first-year ice, which formed during
the most recent winter. White areas show where ice is more than four
years old. Ice thickness is strongly correlated with ice age. First year
ice ranges from 4 to 12 inches (10 to 30 centimeters) thick, while
multiyear ice ranges from 6 to 12 feet (2 to 4 meters) thick. This
correlation means that in general, the brighter the color, the thicker
ice.
Q: Why do these data matter?
A: In
the mid-to-late 1900s, a core of thick, old year-round sea ice covered
much of the Arctic Ocean. Around that core, seasonal ice formed each
winter and melted each summer. North of Alaska, a looping current called
the Beaufort Gyre historically acted as a nursery for young sea ice
where ice could persist and thicken. Ice growth in the gyre roughly
offset the steady transport of ice out of the Arctic Ocean through the
Fram Strait east of Greenland. Since the year 2000, warmer summers have
caused ice to melt in the southern stretch of the Beaufort Gyre, so less
multiyear ice has persisted. The result is younger, thinner sea ice
than in decades past. Today, the amount of thick, old ice in the Arctic
is a small fraction of what it was in the 1980s. Because young, thin ice
melts more easily than old, thick ice, the trend toward thinner ice is
self-reinforcing.
Q: How did you produce these snapshots?
A: Data
Snapshots are derivatives of existing data products: to meet the needs
of a broad audience, we present the source data in a simplified visual
style.
Additional information
These Arctic Sea Ice Age maps use NSIDC Quicklook Arctic Weekly EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age, Version 1 data from 2020 to now, while maps from 2019 and earlier use NSIDC EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age, Version 4 data. Both datasets are available as PNGs (.png) and NetCDF (.nc) files.
References
Perovich, D., Meier, W., Tschudi, M., Farrell,
S., Hendricks, S., Gerland, S., Kaleschke, L., Ricker, R., Tian-Kunze,
X., Webster, M., Woods, K. (2019). Sea ice. 2019 Arctic Report Card.
This upload includes two additional files:
* Arctic Sea Ice Age _NOAA Climate.gov.pdf is a screenshot of the main Climate.gov site for these snapshots (https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/data-snapshots/data-source/arctic-sea-ice-age )
* Cimate_gov_ Data Snapshots.pdf is a screenshot of the data download page for the full-resolution files.
Original Distribution URL:
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https://www.climate.gov/data/IceSnow--Weekly--Sea-Ice-Age--Arctic/
Scope of Project
Subject Terms:
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climate;
climate change;
ice melt
Geographic Coverage:
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Arctic Sea
Time Period(s):
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2000 – 2025 (Weekly images from 2000 to present)
Data Type(s):
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images: photographs, drawings, graphical representations
Collection Notes:
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Data is divided in to folders by image resolution -- full size (zip), broadcast (png), small (png), and large (png). Occasionally there may be one image missing in a particular size but available in another size. Weekly images are missing for all file sizes for some dates in Dec. 2023 and Aug. 2024.
Data downloaded from climate.gov 6/15/2025 - 6/18/2025 (large and full size) and 6/22/2025 (small and broadcast).
Data downloaded from climate.gov 6/15/2025 - 6/18/2025 (large and full size) and 6/22/2025 (small and broadcast).
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