Arctic Sea Ice Visuals

In light of the Arctic sea ice data release discussed in a previous post, several interesting visual tools on the topic have been produced. I have compiled several here, which demonstrate the wide range of ways in which geographical data can be presented:

(1) This first video is taken from the ThinkProgress blog. It shows minimum sea ice volume at an annual resolution (1979 to 2016). The video effectively shows one of them most critical variables associated with the polar regions (it is important to note this shows sea ice volume, not sea ice extent).

(2) This satellite imagery is from the NSIDC and shows monthly averaged sea ice extent for every September (1979 to 2014). Although it is the closest of these visualisations to raw data (showing the images used to calculate the data in Figure 1 of my initial post on the Arctic sea ice minimum) it is limited in the sense that it only shows annual minimum sea ice extent.

(3) A much more detailed approach is this detailed 3D visualization from NASA. This includes the age of sea ice – a factor representative of thickness – as well as a helpful audio explanation. It presents data at a monthly resolution (1984 to 2016) hence showing the seasonal cycle of sea ice. For more detail see the source.

(4) Finally, a much less conventional but none the less informative visualisation is this climate spiral produced by Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading. It captures both the seasonal cycle and the overall (1979 to 2016) decline of Arctic sea ice volume throughout the Anthropocene.