This year’s Arctic sea ice extent sixth lowest on record

You can see in this image from the Canadian Ice Service from Sept. 28 that ice is solidly in and around the Northwest Passage.

In 2018, Arctic sea ice reached its sixth lowest summertime extent in the satellite record.

That’s according to NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, which said on Thursday, Sept. 28, that analysis of their satellite data showed that, at 4.59 million square kilometres, 2018 tied with 2008 and 2010 for the sixth-lowest summertime minimum cover in the satellite record.

Arctic sea ice likely reached its lowest extent of the year last week.

In response to the setting sun and falling temperatures, sea ice cover will now start to expand, the NSDC said, noting that “a shift in wind patterns or a period of late season melt could still push the ice extent lower.”

However, in the Canadian Arctic islands, ice conditions have been heavier than usual in 2018.

The Canadian Ice Service’s ice specialist, Gilles Langis told Nunatsiaq News earlier this month that in many areas ice conditions had been “very challenging,” such as in parts of Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait, Baffin Bay, and at various choke points in the Northwest Passage where the ice pushed in.

That caused several cancellations by cruise ships that had expected to transit the Northwest Passage from east to west.

The ice continues to be heavy, as this map from the CSI shows: many in the Kitikmeot region are worried about whether the last expected sealift barge of the season will arrive at all.

As a result of the uncertainty, at least one construction project in Cambridge Bay has already been put off until next year due to the late arrival of material.

You can see the ice changes in this NASA video: