March 9 2023: The sea ice has decreased since last week at a very small level of 0.40%, from the level on 03/02/2023 of 14.628 M km² to 14.569 M km² for this week. While that is not a large decrease, it really is the tipping point for the sea ice season. The week actually started with an initial small increase on March 7th, which was then followed by two days in a row of decrease since from March 8-9.

The negative sea ice anomaly this week was lower than the anomaly of -0.837 M km² on 03/02/2023 to a greater negative anomaly of -0.888 M km² on 03/09/2023 and so more anomalously negative for this time of year.