Global sea ice analysis as of September 11th, 2008. Image courtesy of NOAA.

I know I have been discussing the status of Arctic sea ice a lot recently as it approached the record minimum set back in 2007. In addition to another Arctic update, I think it is a good time to look at the Antarctic and the current global status of sea ice.

Arctic sea ice

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) revealed last week that the month of August set a record for rate of ice loss. Arctic sea ice extent is still second lowest on record after 2007. According to the NSIDC, there is still another week left in the melt season, but it still looks like it will come up short of the record as the loss has almost leveled out.

The Cryosphere today site from the University of Illinois at Champaign also confirms that the Northern Hemispheric sea ice area is just slightly greater than what it was last year at this time, but still almost 2 million sq/km below normal.

Antarctic

The latest graph from the Cryosphere today shows that the Southern Hemispheric sea ice area anomaly is right at normal. Much of last winter and into the first half of this summer the Antarctic sea ice anomaly was close to 1 million sq/km above normal.

Globally

Finally, here is the latest Cryosphere today graph showing the status of the total global sea ice area. At this time, it appears that the sea ice globally is running close to 2 million sq/km below normal thanks to the situation in the Arctic. Also, despite the notable anomaly increase late last year and early this year, there is currently a slight downward trend that began late in 2004.