Sea Ice -- It's Not All Bad News

The National Snow and Ice Data Center has released a bulletin, showing that the sea ice coverage in the Arctic is actually up from this time last year. We're at the end of the summer melting season, and the extent -- the amount of area covered by sea ice -- is up 9% over the end of last year's summer melt.

Posted 12:29 p.m. Sep 17, 2008 — Updated 12:29 p.m. Sep 17, 2008

Nate Johnson

The National Snow and Ice Data Center has released a bulletin showing that the sea ice coverage in the Arctic is actually up from this time last year. We're at the end of the summer melting season, and the extent -- the amount of area covered by sea ice -- is up 9% over the end of last year's summer melt.

In spite of the apparent improvement, the NSIDC warns that "this season further reinforces the long-term downward trend of sea ice extent." As you can see from the graph, 2008's extent is still well below the longtime average, but as my colleague David Aldrich notes in his blog, they've only been tracking this since 1979. Some history is, of course, better than no history; however, In terms of geological time, that is not a lot of time at all.

As an interesting aside, consider this: What would you think of this news if you owned a global, over-the-water shipping company? Most folks believe that a decline in Arctic sea ice is bad, but if the Arctic isn't covered in sea ice, new and much shorter shipping lanes become open. I'm not saying I'm in favor of a decline in sea ice, of course -- but it's worth keeping in mind that with anything, even bad news is good news for someone.