April 4, 2024:  The sea ice extent has decreased this week at a rate of 3.07% (as opposed to last week’s increase rate of 0.39%), from the level on 03/28/2024 of 14.944 M km² to 14.485 M km² for this week. So, the change to the sea ice melt season may finally have taken hold.  The current sea ice extent is still about on par with the 1991-2020 long term average, but dipping down a bit this week.

The negative sea ice anomaly this week was greater than the anomaly of -0.0659 M km² on 03/28/2024 to a greater negative anomaly of -0.237 M km² on 04/04/2024, and so more anomalously negative for this time of year and inching a bit away from the long-term average level