Climate News

Arctic winter sea ice ties its lowest peak on record for a second year running

Arctic sea ice likely reached its winter maximum on 15 March 2026, at 14.29 million square kilometres (5.52 million square miles), the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado, announced on 26 March. Local station Denver7 reported that this was slightly below 2025's record of 14.31 million square kilometres, a gap small enough for NSIDC to count it as a tie for the lowest maximum in the 48-year satellite record. The peak was about half a million square miles below the 1981–2010 average, roughly twice the size of Texas.

NASA said its ICESat-2 satellite showed much of the Arctic ice was thinner this year, especially in the Barents Sea, and that the Sea of Okhotsk near northern Japan also had relatively low ice. In the Antarctic, summer sea ice bottomed out on 26 February, below average but well above the 2023 record low.

"This record low maximum gives a head start to the spring and summer melt season." — Walt Meier, NSIDC, via Eos

How each outlet framed it

• Denver7 — the local angle: a record measured by a research centre in Boulder, with the figures still preliminary.
• Eos — the consequences: a low winter peak likely means a lower summer minimum, less multi-year ice builds up, and NOAA puts the chance of El Niño by late summer at about 80%.
• NASA — the measurement itself, from ice thickness data to the switch to JAXA's AMSR2 instrument for real-time readings.

What we don't know yet: NSIDC called the numbers preliminary, since late-season weather could still change the maximum. NASA quoted Meier as cautioning that "a low year or two don't necessarily mean much by themselves"; scientists point instead to the decades-long downward trend.