March 16 2023:  The sea ice has decreased since last week, by a bit higher rate at 1.46%, from the level on 03/09/2023 of 14.569 M km² to 14.357 M km² for this week; and so it looks like we are now definitely in the sea ice decline season.

The negative sea ice anomaly this week was lower than the anomaly of -0.888 M km² on 03/09/2023 to a greater negative anomaly of -1.042 M km² on 03/16/2023 and so more anomalously negative for this time of year.