March 2 2023: Over the past week, the sea ice has continued to increase and at slightly higher rate than last week, of 1.72%, from the level on 02/23/2023 of 14.376 M km² to 14.628 M km² for this week; and so while growing at a bit higher rate this week, we are still quickly approaching the end of the sea ice growth season, that is typically in mid-March. 

The negative sea ice anomaly this week was higher than the anomaly of -1.041 M km² on 02/23/2023 to a lower negative anomaly of -0.837 M km² on 03/02/2023 and so less anomalously negative for this time of year.