The pause in the melting of Arctic ice brings no relief.
On 12 September 2026 Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum and covered about 4.6 million square kilometres. The data were published on 23 September by NASA and the American centre for snow and ice research, which have tracked polar ice since the late 1970s. With this extent 2026 shares tenth place on the list of lowest minimums with 2008, 2010 and 2025, because the differences between them are smaller than 40,000 square kilometres. The record from 2012, when the ice shrank to just 3.39 million square kilometres, still remains unbroken.
At first glance, the figures seem almost encouraging, because this year did not bring a new record. The September minimums of the last two decades do not show a significant decline, so scientists speak of a plateau. According to scientist Walt Meier of the same centre, the ice has indeed stopped shrinking, but at a level that is far lower than at the start of the measurements. All 20 lowest minimums since the start of satellite measurements were recorded in the last 20 years, from 2007 to 2026. In other words, even the best year of this series is worse than any year before 2007.
The explanations for such a pause, according to scientists, are multi-layered. In the 1990s and the early 2000s the Arctic lost much of its thick multi-year ice. Today the remaining old ice lies around the North Pole and north of Greenland, where the cold is harshest and the melt season is shortest. In this way a new balance has emerged between the winter growth and the summer melting of first-year ice. Scientists at NASA add that in the last decade there have been more clouds over the Arctic, which protect the ice from solar radiation. Part of the explanation may also be natural variability of the climate, which can mask the long-term trend for years.
Still, the stable figures for the extent do not reveal how much the ice itself has weakened. Today's ice is considerably thinner and younger than in the 1980s, so it is broken up much more easily by waves, winds and storms. Exactly this could be seen this summer: in the Beaufort Sea and the Chukchi Sea the ice melted late, but exceptionally fast. At the same time, a large area of open water opened up between Svalbard and the North Pole.
The consequences do not stay only in the Arctic. The white surface of the ice reflects much of the solar energy, while the dark ocean absorbs it, which further speeds up warming. Because of this feedback loop, the Arctic is warming several times faster than the global average. Because sea ice already floats, its melting does not raise sea level, but it affects the weather, ecosystems and the lives of northern communities. The disappearance of the ice also opens northern sea routes, which attracts shipping companies.
The long-term decline from 1979 onwards is still clear. Because the ice is thin and vulnerable, a single warm and stormy year could trigger rapid melting again. So the pause looks more like a break than an end to the melting.