September 8, 2022: Over the past week, the sea ice has now decreased by a lower rate from last week of 3.48%, from the level on 09/01/2022 of 5.026 M km² to 4.851 M km² for this week.  Perhaps the slow-up of the past couple of weeks is a harbinger that we are really close to bottoming out for the year. At this point we are now just below the 2021 sea ice extent level (4.893 M km²) for the same day in 2021, and so it will continue to be interesting to see what goes on over the next couple of weeks.

The negative sea ice anomaly this week was greater from the anomaly of -1.314 M km² on 09/01/2022 to a more negative anomaly of -1.335 M km² on 09/08/2022 and so more anomalously negative for this time of year.