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A few blocks of sea ice melt on the shore in Frobisher Bay on Aug. 29. An early August storm broke up large chunks. - Tim Edwards/NNSL photo

NUNAVUT
Arctic sea ice cover hit a record decline by the end of August, after a storm tore up the ice earlier in the month - a hit it may have been able to take decades ago.

Sea ice extent fell to 4.10 million square kilometres on Aug. 26, which is the smallest measurement on satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Boulder, Colo. This is slightly smaller than the previous record, set in 2007, of 4.17 million sq. km.

An Arctic storm raged across the sea ice in early August, breaking up the ice and accelerating its decline, but Walt Meier, a scientist at the centre in Colorado, says the sea ice used to be able to weather such storms much better - the ice would get hit but it was hardier and didn't take as much damage.

"It could kind of take a punch (before)," said Meier. "The Arctic's become like a fighter with a glass jaw."

Hunters in Nunavut have seen the sea ice decline. In Arctic Bay, the decline in sea ice really started to become noticeable around the community about eight years ago, said Jobie Attitaq, chair of the Ikajutit Hunters' and Trappers' Organization.

"Normally when it comes through at fall time, we get a lot of year-round ice," said Attitaq, describing it coming into Admiralty Inlet, on which Arctic Bay is situated, and filling nearby sounds. "We don't get that anymore."

"Even the local hunters are usually surprised that we don't get the ice anymore," he said.

He added, however, in March the ice covered Admiralty right out to Lancaster Sound, which the inlet connects to, and Parry Channel.

These past six years have been some of the worst on record, said Meier.

It has been a downward trend since the 1990s, said Claire L. Parkinson, a climate change scientist with the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre. Parkinson has been studying Arctic sea ice at Goddard since 1978.

According to Parkinson, the researchers collect satellite data of radiation, through the Nimbus 7 satellite.

"We're very lucky that sea ice has a very different microwave emission properties than water does," said Parkinson. "It ends up really clear, the distinction where the ice is versus where the open water is."

The data doesn't show how thick the ice is, but other research has been collected on that using methods such as lasers.

Meier said there is a big downward trend in multi-year ice - where the older ice was once 3 to 3.6 metres thick and made up almost a quarter of the ice mass, now "most of that has disappeared" and the multi-year ice is around 0.9 to 3.6 metres thick. Whereas the ice used to be largely one solid block, now many parts of the Arctic look more like "a slushie," he said.

Meier hesitated to predict how small the ice cover would get, not only this season but in the coming years. The sea ice usually hits its year-round low in mid-September.

"We're kind of in undiscovered territory," he said.

Joey Comiso, a senior research scientist with Goddard, agreed and said "it's possible we could see something unprecedented."

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