NASA ice expert Claire Parkinson confirms that global sea ice coverage has continued its overall downward trend since her original analysis was published in 2015.
April snow extent was record low across Europe and Asia, and in June, the entire Northern Hemisphere was below average for the tenth year in a row. Spring snow is disappearing even more rapidly than Arctic sea ice in summer.
In June 2012, snow cover extent over Eurasia and North America hit a new record low. It is the third time in five years that North America has set a new record low, and the fifth year in a row that Eurasia has. The rate of snow cover loss over Northern Hemisphere land areas in June between 1979 and 2012 is -17.6% per decade—a faster decline than September sea ice loss over the same period.
In 2011, annual snow cover extent over Northern Hemisphere continents (including the Greenland ice sheet) averaged 24.7 million square kilometers, which is 0.3 million square kilometers less than the long-term average.
For the fifth year in a row, late spring snow cover was below average again in 2022.