These National Ice Center bi-weekly and weekly Arctic hemispheric sea ice charts capture the 2008 retreat of the ice pack from a 25 February 2008 winter maximum extent to 22 September 2008. Although last year’s summer sea ice minimum extent record was not broken, a record amount of the thickest multiyear sea ice was actually lost this season.

The results were obtained from a detailed analysis of Envisat, RADARSAT SAR and QuikSCAT scatterometer data.