At the height of the Arctic sea ice melting season in mid-September, ice extent was at its lowest point in history except for the record melt year of 2012. Winter is coming in the N, but the ice is failing to recover as fast as it should. There is now less ice in the Arctic in December than ever before–even less than there was at the same time in 2012!

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/1999/12/monthly_ice_11_NH-350×270.png

The interactive chart below will allow you to see time series year by year and make comparisons during the years the satellites have been monitoring the icecaps. Note how the usual autumn ice recovery seems to have stalled and slowed down in November.

If that doesn’t scare the hell out of you, click the toggle on the chart to “Antarctic” and see what’s happening at the other end of the planet. Normally, the S Ocean ice is much more stable than the N, but no more. It now appears that the collapse of polar ice we’ve seen in our hemisphere is now getting started in the S as well.

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph/