Arctic sea ice trends are a key indicator of climate change, an obstacle to maritime activities, a factor in habitat loss, and a significant influence on winter time weather in north west Europe.
EOCIS sea ice thickness, volume and mass netcdf products are generated monthly by CPOM from radar altimetry measurements taken from the ESA CryoSAT-2 satellite during the winter months1 (Oct-Apr). You can view or download products here.
Mean Sea ice thickness grows each Arctic winter season from October to April
Shows the trend in Arctic sea ice thickness since 2010 when CryoSat was launched at the start (Oct), middle (Jan), and end (Apr) of the winter season.
EOCIS-SEAICE-L3C-SITHICK-CS2-5KM-202402-fv1.0.nc
Near Real Time (NRT) sea ice thickness data at 2-day latency (preliminary accuracy) is also available from CPOM at
this link
In the last quarter of 2023, sea ice volume increased from 5.74 thousand km3 in October to 15.4 thousand km3 in December. However, for October, November and December, sea ice volume was below the average for the CryoSat-2 record (2010-2023), particularly in October. This can be attributed to lows in both the extent and thickness of multi-year ice (MYI); in October, the extent of MYI was the lowest on record, at 2.37 million km2 compared to the average of 3.27 million km2. Furthermore, the volume of MYI ice in December was the 4th lowest on record at 4.99 thousand km3. Interestingly, the volume of first-year ice (FYI) in the last quarter of 2023 was high, with November and December having the highest FYI volume since the CryoSat-2 record began, at 6.13 and 10.4 thousand km3 respectively, indicating a recovery since the Spring low FYI volume. This also suggests that the overall below average sea ice volume is being driven by reductions in MYI. [See full pdf report and previous reports..]
1Sea ice freeboard (and derived thickness) is only reliably measured from satellite radar altimetry during the winter months. During summer, melt ponds can form on the sea ice floes making it difficult for the satellite to differentiate between floes and leads, and hence calculate sea ice freeboard (and subsequently thickness). Measurement during summer months using radar altimetry is an area of active research (Landy et al, 2022) but is not yet operationally processed.