Sea Ice Age - 1984 - 2020 (Arctic Only)

Since the late 1900s, Arctic sea ice has thinned, and less sea ice has persisted in the Arctic over multiple melt seasons. The trend toward younger, thinner sea ice over time reflects warming temperatures in the Arctic. As older ice is thicker than younger ice, the reduced area of old ice also indicates a reduction in the total volume of ice.

Colors show the age of sea ice floating in the Arctic Ocean. The darkest blue areas on the map show seasonal or first-year ice, which formed during the most recent winter. White areas show where ice is more than four years old. Ice thickness is strongly correlated with ice age. First year ice ranges from 4 to 12 inches (10 to 30 centimeters) thick, while multiyear ice ranges from 6 to 12 feet (2 to 4 meters) thick. This correlation means that in general, the brighter the color, the thicker the ice. Note that data for the sea ice age is not available along the coastlines.

Scientists estimate the age of sea ice by combining satellite observations of ice locations and extent with buoy data on winds and motion. The temporal coverage for this data set is weekly data from January 1984 through December 2020.

The input ice motion data used for this data set is derived from the Polar Pathfinder daily 25 km EASE-Grid Sea Ice Motion Vectors Version 4 data set.

Tschudi, M., W. N. Meier, J. S. Stewart, C. Fowler, and J. Maslanik. 2019. EASE-Grid Sea Ice Age, Version 4. [Indicate subset used]. Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. doi: https://doi.org/10.5067/UTAV7490FEPB. [Dec 2021].