Blogposts tagged 'Nsidc'

Scientists aboard our ship the MV Arctic Sunrise measure the thickness of the Arctic sea ice.

Today we're expecting an announcement from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre - the US body that monitors the Arctic - about the 'seasonal low' of Arctic sea ice for 2009.

Every year, the Arctic sea ice - the floating cap of frozen ocean that sits over the north of the planet - shrinks and grows with the seasons. In the Arctic summer it melts away and gets smaller, in winter it grows and get bigger. It being mid-September we've just passed the height of Arctic summer, and today the NSIDC will tell us how small the ice cap got this year.