The Beaufort Gyre is a large wind-driven ocean circulation in the western Arctic Ocean, north of Alaska and Canada. Together with the Transpolar Drift, it is one of the Arctic’s two major sea-ice circulation systems. Within the gyre, free-floating sea ice is very mobile and susceptible to winds, drifting in a clockwise direction due to a high-pressure system that fosters anti-cyclonic winds. This allows Arctic sea ice to survive multiple summers and develop into long-lasting multi-year ice. This animation, produced by NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio, shows the variation in the age of ice in the Arctic at weekly intervals from 1984 to 2019, with darker colours representing younger ice and white indicating ice at least four years old. It illustrates the dramatic decline of older sea ice and its retreat toward the Canadian Arctic, a trend largely attributed to climate change. The Beaufort Gyre also stores vast quantities of freshwater whose release could influence the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and the global climate.

This visualization shows the age of the Arctic sea ice between 1984 and 2019. Younger sea ice, or first-year ice, is shown in a dark shade of blue while the ice that is four years old or older is shown as white. The animation shows the seasonal variability of the ice, growing in the Arctic winter and melting in the summer. In addition, this also shows the changes from year to year.

One significant change in the Arctic region in recent years has been the rapid decline in perennial sea ice. Perennial sea ice, also known as multi-year ice, is the portion of the sea ice that survives the summer melt season. Perennial ice may have a life-span of nine years or more and represents the thickest component of the sea ice; perennial ice can grow up to four meters thick. By contrast, first year ice that grows during a single winter is generally at most two meters thick.

Note that data for the sea ice age is not available along the coastlines. The region where data is not available is shown in a dark lavender color.

Author: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio