During the 2007 melt season Arctic sea ice fell to the lowest levels since satellite measurements began in 1979, reaching a low of 1.65 million square miles in September. That is 23 percent lower than the previous record low set in 2005. In addition, sea ice in September 2007 was 39 percent below the long-term average from 1979-2000, having dropped as much as 50 percent from the 1950s, according to researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). NSIDC is part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), which is a joint institution of CU-Boulderand NOAA.
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