The sea ice extent in the Arctic Ocean is lower than it has ever been on this date since satellite records have been taken. This situation has existed since October, that is, the area covered by sea ice has been less than ever before on THAT DATE for all winter long. This suggests the Arctic is re-freezing for the winter as expected, but at a lower rate than ever before.

In Antarctic waters it is now summer, and we are about two weeks short of the traditional ice minimum. As of yesterday, the sea ice extent in the Southern Ocean is now lower than its ever been, regardless of year, date or season. And it is expected to drop even further before the minimum. This is especially of concern because the Antarctic Ocean is stabilized by the huge continental icecap and in the past has been fairly stable. If the trends we are seeing now continue, we are losing sea ice from both poles, and the summer sun is penetrating deep into the sea heating it up still further.

This is not just a fluke, or an outlier, or an extreme or anomalous event. It is a trend which has been closely monitored from space and analyzed by scientists all over the world now across five decades. Neither is this a subtle effect that must be teased out with statistics. In the Arctic Ocean, where the effect is amplified by feedback mechanisms, the pole has lost almost half of its summer ice cover since we’ve had reliable, repeatable and unambiguous sensor data. At the rate it is now melting away, even if it remains constant (and its showing signs of picking up) the N pole will be free of all summer ice by 2030, and the Arctic will become virtually ice-free year-round by the end of the century.

This interactive chart link by the National Snow and Ice Data Center can be toggled to flip between poles and contains time series curves for every year since 1979.

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