Visualizing the 2012 Sea Ice Minimum

Jesse Allen, Michon Scott, Mike Carlowicz, NASA Earth Observatory

This interactive visualization from the NASA Earth Observatory website compares Arctic sea ice minimum extent from 1984 to that of 2012.

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Notes from our reviewers

The CLEAN collection is hand-picked and rigorously reviewed for scientific accuracy and classroom effectiveness. Read what our review team had to say about this resource below or learn more about how CLEAN reviews teaching materials.

Educators could also use images alone with slider tool, without the text, or could paraphrase or simplify text. CLEAN resource [link http://serc.carleton.edu/resources/44665.html 'Arctic Sea Ice 2012'] is a video that addresses Arctic sea ice extent over a similar time period.
The amount of sea ice loss over the past 28 years is quite dramatic. Accompanying background information discuss how the data was collected and explains the loss of ice extent as a positive (self-reinforcing) feedback mechanism. At the time of this review (2016), the summer of 2012 still holds the record for minimum sea ice in the Arctic. But that may change. Up-to-date information on sea ice can be found on the [link http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ 'Arctic Sea Ice News'] page of the NSIDC. Comments from expert scientist: The development of Arctic sea ice is an important topic. The sea ice extent minimum of 2012 is presented in a clear manner that is easy to understand, but also conveys its importance.