Polar Bears International

Shrinking Sea Ice

Take a close look at changes to Arctic sea ice between 1984 and 2016. The pulsing shows sea ice formation in winter and melting in summer.

This visualization by NASA shows the age of the Arctic sea ice between 1984 and 2016. Younger sea ice, or first-year ice, is shown in a dark shade of blue while the ice that is four years old or older is shown as white. A bar graph displayed in the lower right corner quantifies the area in square kilometers covered by each age category of perennial sea ice.

Arctic Climate Temperature Trend

The loss of Arctic sea ice correlates with the rise in Arctic temperatures, as shown below.

Over the last 2,000 years:

• Green depicts a gradual cooling trend.
• Blue depicts decade-by-decade variations.
• Red indicates an abrupt warming spike in recent decades.