Antarctic Sea Ice & Ocean Maps | Atlantic Observatory

The Atlantic Antarctic connection

The Southern Ocean links the Atlantic with the Pacific and Indian oceans. Around Antarctica, ocean currents and seasonal sea ice shape this connected system.

Read about this ocean connection ↗

Satellite-derived · Sea-ice extent

Where is the ice?

Map view

Satellite-derived estimates on a 25 km grid. Concentration adds coverage detail, not finer spatial resolution. Select a map for its full-size image and legend.

Satellite view · NASA imagery

See the ocean, ice and clouds in true colour. This daily mosaic combines satellite passes; it is not a live camera or a measurement of ice concentration.

Image date (UTC)

White may be cloud, snow or ice. Black areas have no usable imagery, often because of polar darkness; they do not mean open water. Coverage and brightness vary between passes. This view has a different projection and framing from the NSIDC map above.

NASA GIBS · NOAA-20 VIIRS corrected reflectance. Images load directly from NASA only when this section is opened. Select the image to enlarge.

Latest accepted daily value in this snapshot

Sea-ice extent

million km²

Extent counts ocean grid cells with at least 15% sea-ice concentration. It does not measure ice thickness or volume.

Sea ice and land ice are different.

This page measures floating sea ice. It does not measure Greenland’s or Antarctica’s ice-sheet mass loss, or directly tell us how much sea level is rising.

The seasonal cycle

How does this year compare?

Daily sea-ice extent compared with the same calendar day in 1981–2010.

Choose a year

Selected year1981–2010 daily averageHistorical range · ±2 SD

Read the daily values

The longer record

How has the same month changed?

Follow the sea area covered by ice in the same calendar month across years. Each point is a monthly average, not an annual minimum or maximum.

Calendar monthInspect a year

Compare the same month on the map

The left map follows the year slider above. Choose a reference year for the right map. Both maps show monthly means for the same month and hemisphere.

Reference year

Both maps use the selected month and ice view. Missing source images remain unavailable.

Read and download the historical values

Download source CSV ↗

A glacier descending between rocky mountains towards the water

Compare February for the end of the melt season and September for winter ice coverage. These charts show changes in sea-ice extent; they don’t explain what caused them.

Explore a little further

Places, research and the landscape beneath the ice

Explore Antarctica’s geography and the research revealing what happens beneath its ice.

Find your way around the Arctic

The Arctic Office’s interactive map brings together place names, seabed relief and research-station locations. Use it for orientation; check individual stations with their operators for current information.

Explore the Arctic Office map ↗

Explore Antarctica · SCAR maps

Look more closely at Antarctica’s coastline, ice shelves, exposed rock and terrain with the SCAR Antarctic Digital Database, managed by British Antarctic Survey.

Open the interactive Antarctic map ↗ · Browse the original datasets ↗

What can these maps tell us?

Coastline and ice shelves: distinguish the coast, floating ice-shelf fronts and grounding lines where grounded ice begins to float.
Terrain: explore elevation contours and exposed rock.
Source detail: find individual layer editions, survey information and downloadable files in the catalogue.

Reference geography, not today’s sea-ice edge. Latest ADD release listed by BAS: May 2026, v7.12. Individual layers and features have different dates and levels of detail. ADD data are available under CC BY 4.0, with each dataset’s required citation. The external viewer retains its own credits.

What lies beneath Antarctica’s ice?

Beneath the ice are mountains, valleys and deep basins. Bedmap3 brings this hidden landscape into view.

Shaded relief map of Antarctica’s bed beneath the ice and the surrounding seafloor, with a bed-height scale from 6,000 metres below sea level to 2,000 metres above. — Blue shows ground below sea level; green and brown show higher ground. The colours describe height, not temperature.

Compiled from surveys and estimates between them, including the surrounding seafloor. Published in 2025. This is a landscape model, not a prediction of Antarctica after the ice melts.

Read the Bedmap3 story ↗

Select the image to enlarge.

Bedmap3 · Pritchard et al. (2025), via British Antarctic Survey · CC BY 4.0. Image unchanged; resized for display.

Links open the source websites in a new tab.

Data sources, updates & photograph credits →

EXPLORE ANTARCTICA

The ocean around the ice.

Sea-ice extent nearly two million km² below the seasonal average.