February 29, 2024:  The sea ice has decreased this week at a pretty small rate of 0.27% (as opposed to last week’s growth rate of 1.46%), from the level on 02/22/2024 of 14.823 M km² to 14.783 M km² for this week.  So, perhaps we are right on the precipice of the change to the sea ice melt season.

The negative sea ice anomaly this week was less than the anomaly of -0.207 M km² on 02/22/2024 to a smaller negative anomaly of -0.154 M km² on 02/29/2024, and so less anomalously negative for this time of year.