Graph of the Day: Arctic Ice Volume and Trend, 1979-2010
The big Arctic news remains the staggering decline in multiyear ice — and hence ice volume. If we get near the Arctic’s sea ice area (or extent) seen in recent years this summer, then this may well mean record low ice volume — the fourth straight year of low volume. And the latest extent data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center suggests we will. Of course, the anti-science crowd — and much of the media — remain stuck in two-dimensional thinking. So the headlines last month were mostly about how the Arctic ice was supposedly “recovering” to the 1979-2000 average. Now, it was reasonable to ignore the third dimension — ice thickness — when we didn’t have good data on it. But now we do, so it is unreasonable to continue focusing on just two dimensions in the Arctic.
