Sea ice advances and retreats in concert with the seasons. Monthly sea ice climatology is created by averaging the sea ice for each month over a period of many years. This animation shows the monthly average sea ice climatology over the Arctic region derived from years 1979 through 2002.
Please give credit for this item to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).