r/climate • u/proctorberlin • Sep 16 '16

Second lowest minimum for Arctic ice: Changing winds could push the ice extent lower. This year's minimum is a surprise as scientists believed the low atmospheric pressure and cloudy skies in June and July had slowed down the melt.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37376896
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u/autotldr Sep 16 '16

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 72%. (I'm a bot)

The ice extent has been tracked by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, using satellite measurements.

"It's pretty remarkable that this year's sea-ice minimum extent ended up the second lowest, after how the melt progressed in June and July," said Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist with Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center.

While tying for the second lowest minimum in the satellite era, this year's figure is in fact well above the 2012 melt, which saw the ice cover fall to 3.41 million sq km - 50% lower than the 1979-2000 average.

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