Sea ice extent (Q982)

Subject, term, tag: Sea ice extent

Sea ice extent (SIE)

Language	Label	Description	Also known as
English	Sea ice extent	Subject, term, tag: Sea ice extent	Sea ice extent (SIE)

Statements

Instance of

Category

source version

IPCC Glossary v1.5

1 reference

Source

https://apps.ipcc.ch/glossary/

date accessed

27 May 2026

Part of

Working Group I: Climate Change 2021 – The Physical Science Basis

0 references

Definition

Sea ice extent is calculated for gridded data products as the total area of all grid cells with sea ice concentration above a given threshold, usually 15 %. It hence is a grid-dependent, non-linear measure of sea ice coverage. (English)