Arc­tic drift ice: Febru­a­ry cover at fourth lowest extent sin­ce 1979

The arc­tic drift ice cover usual­ly reaches its maxi­mum dis­tri­bu­ti­on in mid March. In 2014, howe­ver, the Febru­a­ry extent was far behind the nor­mal values. The average was 14.4 mil­li­on squa­re kilo­me­tres or 910,000 mil­li­on squa­re kilo­me­tres less than the long-term average. This puts Febru­a­ry 2014 on the fourth place in the nega­ti­ven­sta­tis­tics sin­ce 1979, the begin­ning of sys­te­ma­tic obser­va­tions.

Febru­a­ry 2005 holds so far the abso­lu­te nega­ti­ve rekord.

In Febru­a­ry 2014, the ice cover grew with about 14,900 squa­re kilo­me­tres per day. The cor­re­spon­ding long-term value is, howe­ver, 20,300 squa­re kilo­me­tres. Short-term fluc­tua­tions against the gro­wing trend in Febru­a­ry are due to ice move­ment rather than mel­ting.

In Febru­a­ry 2014, the tem­pe­ra­tures in lar­ge parts of the Arc­tic were 4 to 8 degrees abo­ve the long-term average.

Source: Snow and Ice Data Cent­re

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