Arctic News: September 2025

Wednesday, September 3, 2025

Arctic sea ice September 2025

The image below shows that Arctic sea ice volume was at a record low for the day on September 2, 2025, as it has been for more than a year.

On the image below, markers are added for September (red) and April (blue) corresponding with the year's minimum- and maximum volume, showing the downward path over the years for both the annual sea ice volume minimum and maximum.

The global sea ice area was 2.31 million km² below the 1981-2010 mean on September 1, 2025, a deviation from 1981-2010 of -3.76σ.

The image below shows sea surface temperatures around North America as high as 33°C on September 1, 2025.

Climate Emergency Declaration

The temperature rise is accelerating and the rise could accelerate even more due to decreases in buffers (as described in earlier posts such as this one), due to strengthening feedbacks, especially during an El Niño, and due to further reduction of the aerosol masking effect, which are all developments that could rapidly speed up existing feedbacks and trigger new feedbacks.

The situation is dire and the precautionary principle calls for rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the situation, as described in this 2022 post, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as discussed at this group.