Sea ice is a defining feature of marine and coastal ecosystems in the Arctic and Northwest Atlantic oceans. Minimum sea ice extent, which occurs at the tail end of summer, declined from 1.53 million km2 in 1980 to 900,000 km2 in 2024 across Canadian waters. Loss of sea ice impacts people living in the North, particularly Inuit, who rely on sea ice for transportation, hunting and fishing.
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