Arctic sea ice reaches 2nd lowest amount in 2020

 On September 15, 2020, Arctic sea ice reached its yearly lowest size. However this year the ice is much smaller than it should be, 2nd smallest on record. NASA has been keeping track of the Arctic's ice size since the 1970s, when the satellite data was studied it showed that the ice was increasingly small this year, only around 1.44 million square miles. The ice in the Arctic goes through seasonal patterned changes each year. The ice thickens and expands in the fall and winter to the point where almost the entire Arctic ocean is covered, and the ice shrinks and thins in the spring and summer months. The reason for the decent decrease in the size of the Arctic's ice is due to a Siberian heat wave that swept through the area in the spring. The heat wave caused the ice's melting season to start earlier than usual, this is only the second time the Arctic's ice has reached a size below 1.5 million square miles. The melting seasons of the ice keep starting earlier and earlier each year. The decreasing amount of ice threatens wild life in the area like polar bears and seals. The increasing temperature in the north and longer melting seasons points us towards more o the dangers of global warming.

This article helps to show the dangers of global warming and how it is harming our planet. Many of the things people do every day contribute to the acceleration of global warming therefore I do not see this issue being resolved in the near future. Global warming is causing large heat waves in areas that normally do not get large heat waves, and this incredibly dangerous for the land and ecosystems living in those areas. The heat waves are causing the melting seasons of the Arctic ice to begin increasingly sooner with each passing year. The sooner the melting starts, the less ice we will retain the next year. If the affects of global warming keep up at the severity they are now, we may not see any Arctic ice in the future.

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