September 2, 2021: Over the past week the sea ice has now decreased from last week by a slightly greater rate of 5.64% from the level on 08/26/2021 of 5.341 M km2 to 5.040 M km2 for this week. The rate of loss at this time is about even with that in 2018, however, and well above the all-time low season of 2012; and so with about 2-3 weeks left in the ice loss season, a record for this season seems unlikely at this point. In fact, the sea ice extent at this time of year is probably the highest it has been over the past few years.