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on September 18th satellites observed

that Arctic sea ice had reached its

annual low this year's sea ice minimum

is effectively tied for the second

lowest on record and while sea ice grows

and shrinks with the seasons 2019

continues the downward trend of the

extent the trends that we've been seeing

with the sea ice minimum have just been

a decrease so in the 70s since the

modern record began tracking to today

there's there's variation from year to

year but it's really just a downward

trend satellite observations show that

Arctic sea ice is not only shrinking an

extent it is also becoming younger and

thinner that means less and less ice

survives the annual melt the the Arctic

is actually warmed a lot more than the

the globe as a whole there's a something

called article efficient which means

that the the temperatures in the Arctic

have warmed about two to three times the

global average a major cause of this

warming is due to the loss of

reflectivity or albedo of the sea ice

snow-covered sea ice has a high albedo

this keeps the sun's energy from being

absorbed by a dark ocean but when sea

ice begins to melt it loses some of that

reflectivity and without the sea ice

cover the ocean will absorb most of the

sun's energy this creates a feedback

loop that leads to more melting and

warming in the Arctic we care about sea

ice for a variety of reasons one being

because it does have an impact on things

like our weather and our climate because

of the albedo effect if you decrease the

amount of Arctic sea ice you start

warming up the Arctic and when you start

warming up the Arctic you can start

changing the circulation of the the jet

stream which brings weather to us here

in the mid-latitudes the other other

reasons why we care about sea ice Arctic

sea ice in particular is because we've

seen such big changes due to warming

melting ice it's a good visual to show

that yes the climate is changing

and it's because of warning NASA

continues to monitor these changes to

the Arctic so that we may get a better

understanding of what we can expect in

the future