Arctic Sea Ice
Meltometer
Explore the Arctic Sea Ice Meltometer, an interactive tool that visualizes the decline in Arctic sea ice and lets users connect it directly to local emissions worldwide.
Welcome to the Meltometer
The Arctic Sea Ice Meltometer is an interactive graphics tool that visualizes annual Arctic sea‑ice decline, using a stripe‑style chart and local emissions data.
Help us spread awareness by sharing your results with #Meltometer #ArcticMatters
Arctic Sea Ice Stripes
We are proud to present our Arctic Sea Ice Stripes with you, created by Arctic Basecamp. In this brand new visualisation, the light stripes represent years with more of the Arctic Ocean covered by sea ice, and darker stripes represent years with less ice and more exposed ocean.
It paints a clear picture: rising temperatures mean Arctic sea ice is disappearing. The lowest annual average sea ice was recorded in 2020.
Arctic Sea Ice Extent
Why is Sea Ice important?
What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay there, in fact, the loss of Arctic sea ice has massive repercussions for the rest of the globe.
Repercussions on the rest of the globe:
- Arctic sea ice loss is directly related to global CO2 emissions (Stroeve & Notz, 2018).
- Sea ice loss worsens warming. White ice cover reflects much of the sun’s energy back to space. But as ice disappears, the dark ocean is exposed, which absorbs more of the sun’s energy, and thus warms, melting more snow and ice. Estimates suggest that the loss of Arctic sea ice together with reductions in snow cover over the boreal land areas will exacerbate global warming by 25 – 40%.
- Arctic sea ice is shrinking fast. Arctic sea ice is an indicator of climate stability. Today, there is about 40% less sea ice coverage at the end of the melt season than in the 1980s. The ice area shrank by almost half the size of the entire European Union. What is left was smaller than at any time in at least 1,000 years.
- Summer sea ice in the Arctic could melt almost completely by the 2030s—roughly a decade earlier than previously projected.
- We need to reduce global emissions to save the Arctic sea ice.
