Arctic sea ice area already shrank by over 81 percent this year

Arctic sea ice area already shrank by over 81% this year.

Arctic sea ice area was 13.70851 million square km on the 88th day of 2012, as illustrated on the image below by The Cryosphere Today.  The image further below shows that only 2.59449 million square km was left of Arctic sea ice area on the 238th day of 2012. In other words, less than 19% is left of the sea ice area there was earlier this year.

And there's still quite a few days to go in the melting season.