🌊🧊🌀 Arctic sea ice varies seasonally, typically reaching a maximum extent, or area, in March and a minimum in September. This year, Arctic sea ice hit its minimum extent of 4.67 million square kilometers on September 18, 2022 – roughly 1.55 million square kilometers below the 1981-2010 average. Recently, the Arctic sea ice minimum has been decreasing at a rate of 12.6% per decade. This visualization shows the Arctic sea ice extent, or area, from October 1978 to September 2022. The chart is circular with the year in the center and months of the year around the outside. There are three concentric circles labeled with sea ice maximum extent in millions of square kilometers (5, 10 and 15) with the outer ring being the largest value. As the years count up, a line spirals through the months of the year and around the circle. The line turns to blue hues when there is more sea ice and red and orange hues when there is less sea ice. As the spiral progresses, the lines form a deformed circle with reddish hues on the left side of the circle between September and October (the sea ice minimum extent) and blue hues on the right side between February and April (the sea ice maximum extent). The reddish lines on the left side of the circle are indented, indicating a decline in sea ice minimum extent over the years. The circle rotates and flattens out into a graph with stacked lines, each representing a year. The lines stretch from the red-colored minimums on the left to the blue maximums on the right. A yellow line connects the sea ice minimums on the left, showing the overall trend of decreasing minimum extent. #ArcticSeaIce #Arctic #Ice #DataVisualization #NASA #Climate #EarthFromOrbit