100 Days of Melting

Currently the Arctic sea ice covers 9.5 million square kilometers an area which is between the extent of 2008 and 2007. So, given the relatively cold Arctic summer and far less multi-annual sea ice, how will it look like in late September 2009?

The animation above shows the last 100 days captured by NASA’s satellite Terra. Be careful, areas under the clouds are not updated, the stills are not telling the truth. The first frame is dated 03/26/09.

Check out the HD Quality link and go fullscreen to enjoy a brilliant 720p animation with a very detailed Arctic. A 14MB AVI is available on request.

Many thanks to the MODIS Rapid Response System Team providing a daily high resolution mosaic of the Arctic

Follow the daily melting at ice-map.appspot.com.