<p>In February 2018, the average extent of sea ice in the Arctic was the lowest of any February on record, thanks to a winter warming event. Then, on March 17, 2018, Arctic sea ice extent reached its annual peak; it was the second-lowest maximum on record.
</p><p>By the time this image was acquired in mid-April, springtime sunlight and warmth had advanced the melting to produce some beautiful patterns and textures in the Beaufort Sea, north of Canada. The natural-color image was acquired by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 on April 15, 2018. A small part of the image (lower right) was mosaicked in from an April 17 image in order to show more of Mackenzie Bay. In the days before this image was acquired, the region experienced an extended period of generally sunny days, allowing ample sunlight to reach the ice and melt its surface. The thinnest ice appears blue-gray.
</p><p>The favorable weather was a boon for NASA’s Operation IceBridge, an airborne mission now in its tenth year making flights over the Arctic. Clear skies meant ample data could be collected by instruments on P-3 research plane when it flew over sea ice in the eastern Beaufort Sea on April 14.
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“The main purpose of these IceBridge flights is to measure the thickness of the sea ice,” said IceBridge project scientist Nathan Kurtz. “Ice thickness is an important factor which allows us to assess the health of the pack and its ability to survive the summer melt. It is also an important regulator in the exchange of energy and moisture between the ocean and the atmosphere.”
NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey, and MODIS data from LANCE/EOSDIS Rapid Response, with special thanks to Walt Meier, NSIDC. Story by Kathryn Hansen.
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