Watch Melting Arctic Sea Ice Approach its Annual Minimum (Video)

Arctic sea ice melt is a yearly occurrence. As temperatures warm in the ocean, massive chunks of ice break off and disappear in the northern reaches of our planet. Now, the ice is well on its way toward its annual "minimum" and scientists are getting a closer look as to how small the expanse of Arctic ice will become.

In 2012, the Arctic sea ice reached its lowest point. In fact, on Aug. 21 last year, the ice was a mere 1.67 million square miles. For a comparison, the largest recorded expanse for this date was 3.16 million square miles in 1996. This year, though, it seems as if the ice isn't quite as drastically low as it was in 2012. It measures 2.25 million square miles.

That's not to say that Arctic sea ice is on the rise, though. There are periodical dips and rises in the amount of ice present from year to year. Yet the overall trend seems to be downward.

"Even if this year ends up being the sixth- or seventh-lowest extent, what matters is that the 10 lowest extents recorded have happened during the last 10 years," said Walt Meier, a glaciologist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in a news release. "The long-term trend is strongly downward."

Scientists don't just study sea ice extent, though. They also examine sea ice area, which discards regions of open water among ice floes and only takes into account the parts of the Arctic Ocean completely covered by ice. This year, the Arctic sea ice area measured 1.98 million square miles on Aug. 21. Keeping tracking of the ice area allows scientists to better calculate disappearing ice.

Currently, there are just about three weeks of melting left in the season. This means that the 2013 Arctic sea ice minimum is unlikely to be a record low. Yet that doesn't mean we've seen the last of the melting. The occurrence of a powerful storm in August, such as the one that happened in 2012, could cause the rate of sea ice decline to change.

"Last year's storm went across an area of open water and mixed the smaller pieces of ice with the relatively warm water, so it melted very rapidly," said Meier in a news release. "This year, the storms hit in an area of more consolidated ice. The storms this year were more typical summer storms; last year's was the unusual one."

As the sea ice continues its downward trend, though, we may be facing some new challenges. Different species of animals may suffer from the loss of ice and the warming ocean waters could greatly impact fisheries in the future.

Want to see the Arctic sea ice retreat? Check out the video below, courtesy of YouTube and NASA.