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After a miserable May with unusual warmth, Arctic sea ice hits a record low for early June

Screenshot of an animation of sea ice flowing through the Nares Strait from April 19 to May 11, 2019. This flow usually doesn’t begin until June or July. Source: NASA’s Aqua satellite, NASA Worldview via NSIDC

With Arctic temperatures running well above average in May, sea ice in the region continued its long-term decline, finishing with the second lowest extent for the month.

And since then, things have gotten worse.

On June 10, Arctic sea ice reached a record low for this time of year. Its extent was 494,983 square miles below the 1981-2010 median for the date.

Here’s another way to think about this: Sea ice has gone missing from an area exceeding the size of California, Nevada, Arizona and Oregon combined.