Washington  - Arctic sea ice made a slight recovery this year, but still covered the third-lowest area since measurements began in 1979, the lead US ice institute reported Tuesday.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, said its annual end-of-summer observation showed the North Pole ice sheet covered 5.36 million square kilometres.

The figure represented a 1.06-square-kilometre recovery from the record low of 2007. The second lowest measurement was in 2008.

"Its nice to see a little recovery over the past couple years, but theres no reason to think that were headed back to conditions seen back in the 1970s," said NSIDC director Mark Serreze. "We still expect to see ice-free summers sometime in the next few decades." (dpa)