Sea ice loss increases methane danger

Sea ice is low at both poles. The image below shows Antarctic sea ice thickness (left) and concentration (center and right) on January 5, 2026. 

[ click on images to enlarge ]

Massive loss of albedo amplifies the decline of Antarctic sea ice and the decline of the snow and ice cover over Antarctica, resulting in elevated global temperatures that could persist through September 2026, when Arctic sea ice typically reaches its minimum extent. 

[ from earlier post ]

The above image shows very high temperature anomalies forecast around Antarctica and over the Arctic Ocean for September 2026, at a time when Arctic sea ice volume is expected to be very low. 

[ click on images to enlarge ]

Moving from the bottom of a La Niña to the peak of a strong El Niño can in itself make a difference of more than 0.5°C, as discussed in an earlier post. The image on the right shows a NOAA update of Niño-3.4 region temperature anomalies and forecasts.

The image below, adapted from ECMWF, shows the ENSO anomalies and forecasts for developments through November 2026 in Niño3.4 (left panel) and in Niño1+2 (right panel), indicating that the next El Niño will emerge and strengthen in the course of 2026.

[ from earlier post ]

Arctic sea ice volume is at a record low for the time of year, it has been at a record daily low for well over a year. The image below shows Arctic sea ice volume through January 5, 2026.

Let's hope the 2026 Arctic sea ice volume (arrow) is not disappearing behind the legend. 

There is a huge danger that seafloor methane and methane from thawing terrestrial permafrost will add strongly and abruptly to the temperature rise, as discussed in many earlier posts such as this one and as illustrated by the screenshot below.

[ screenshot from earlier post ]

Greenhouse gases rising 

Ominously, concentrations of greenhouse gases at Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska, are very high and rising. The image below shows daily measurements of carbon dioxide concentrations from 2020. 

The above image and the images below are adapted from images issued by NOAA January 6, 2026. The images show concentrations of greenhouse gases recorded at the Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory (BRW), a NOAA facility located near Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska, at 71.32 degrees North latitude. The image below shows hourly average methane measurements from 2020. 

The image below shows monthly average methane measurements from 2001.

The image below shows monthly average nitrous oxide measurements from 2016.

Climate Emergency Declaration

UN secretary-general António Guterres recently spoke about the need for “a credible global response plan to get us on track” regarding the international goal of limiting the global temperature rise. “The science demands action, the law commands it,” Guterres said, in reference to a recent international court of justice ruling. “The economics compel it and people are calling for it.”

What could be added is that the situation is dire and unacceptably dangerous, and the precautionary principle necessitates rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the outlook, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as described in posts such as this 2022 post and this one and as discussed in the Climate Plan group.

Links

• NSIDC - Sea Ice Today
https://nsidc.org/sea-ice-today

• Tropicaltidbits.com
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com

• The threat of seafloor methane eruptions
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-threat-of-seafloor-methane-eruptions.html

• Feedbacks in the Arctic
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/feedbacks.html

• NOAA - Global Monitoring Laboratory - Data Visualisation - flask and station methane measurements
https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv

• Focus on Antarctica
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/09/focus-on-antarctica.html

• Danish Meteorological Institute - Arctic sea ice volume and thickness
https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php

• University of Bremen - sea ice concentration and thickness
https://seaice.uni-bremen.de/start

• Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html

• Transforming Society
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/transforming-society.html

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

• Climate Emergency Declaration
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climate-emergency-declaration.html

Huge temperature rise in 2026?

[ image from 1991 poster ]

The image on the right was included in a poster featuring at the AGU Fall Meeting in 1991. The image warned about an escalating temperature rise in the Arctic, pointing at a 10°C rise in the Arctic by 2036. The poster warns that this rise threatens to trigger seafloor methane releases resulting in runaway global warming. 

Over time, further contributors to the temperature rise have been highlighted with the warning that they could jointly trigger a total potential global temperature rise of 10°C as early as 2026. 

A huge temperature rise threatens to unfold and it could do so as early as next year (2026), as illustrated by the image on the right. Altogether, the temperature rise from pre-industrial could be more than 18.44°C by the end of 2026. 

[ see the Extinction page ]

The barchart on the right conceptually dates back to 2016, when a strong El Niño came with a strong temperature rise. When expressed by means of a polynomial trend that was extended by a decade, the trend pointed at a 10°C rise by 2026.

The barchart has basically remained the same over the past ten years, be it that the historic temperature rise from pre-industrial has turned out to be larger (pink) and that the cloud feedback could add a further 8°C to the rise (grey). Also, for clarity, aerosols have been split up into on the one hand sulfates (green) and on the other hand carbon monoxide, black & brown carbon and non-methane volatile organic carbon (brown).  

Importantly, posts have over time pointed out that humans are likely to go extinct with a rise of 3°C and most life on Earth will disappear with a 5°C rise, as illustrated by the image below, from an analysis discussed in an earlier post.

With the year 2026 approaching fast, it is time to have another look at how fast and by how much temperatures could rise. The danger of a strong El Niño emerging in 2026 is highlighted below and this could come at a time when emissions are high, Earth's albedo is low and both land and ocean sinks are losing their capacity to take up carbon dioxide and heat. 

[ from earlier post ]

The image below shows how, over the course of the year, temperature anomalies in 2023, 2024 and 2025 each have at times reached the highest daily records, even though 2025 wasn't an El Niño year. The image shows temperature anomalies from 1940 through to December 29, 2025, compared to 1991-2020, which isn't pre-industrial.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

The image below, from an earlier post, shows NASA Land Only monthly temperature anomalies (black squares) with respect to 1880-1890 (not pre-industrial) through November 2025 and shows the 1.5°C threshold crossed for all months since 2022. The Lowess 3-year smoothing trend (red line) indicates that the 2°C threshold was crossed in 2022 and that 3°C may get crossed in 2028 if this trend continues (dashed extension). The picture could look even worse when a genuinely pre-industrial base was used and a polynomial trend was applied and extended.

[ Potential Land-only rise, from earlier post ]

As said, the image at the top shows very high temperatures in 2025, even though 2025 wasn't an El Niño year. In other words, current temperatures are suppressed. Moving from the bottom of a La Niña to the peak of a strong El Niño can in itself make a difference of more than 0.5°C. This is illustrated by the image below, from an earlier post, that shows a temperature rise of more than 0.5°C from November 2022 to March 2023, when the last El Niño had not yet even started.

[ Temperature rise due to El Niño from earlier post ]

How deep into La Niña conditions are we at the moment? Sea surface temperatures in the Niño-3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific Ocean (5°N-5°S, 120°W-170°W) are indicative for El Niño/La Niña conditions. The image below shows the location of that region (square on the globe, inset) and graphs with the sea surface temperatures in the Niño-3.4 region for each of the days of the years from 1981 through December 27, 2025. 

The image below shows a graph with temperature anomalies in the Niño-3.4 region from 1950 through November 2025, when the anomaly was -0.68°C.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

The image on the right shows a NOAA update of Niño-3.4 region temperature anomalies and forecasts. 

NOAA considers a La Niña event to occur when a one-month negative sea surface temperature anomaly of -0.5° C or less is observed in the Niño-3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific Ocean (5°N-5°S, 120°W-170°W) and is forecasted to persist for three consecutive months, while an atmospheric response typically associated with La Niña must also be observed over the equatorial Pacific Ocean.

[ from an earlier post ]

The image on the right, adapted from NOAA, shows ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) probabilities, with El Niño (red bar) emerging in the course of 2026.

The graph below, adapted from tropicaltidbits, uses CDAS (Climate Data Assimilation System) data showing an anomaly of -1.272°C on Dec 28, 2025. The graph gives another idea as to how deep we have descended into La Niña conditions.

The CDAS analysis below shows very low sea surface temperature anomalies (in blue) in the Niño3.4 region in the Central Pacific on December 28, 2025.

The image below, adapted from ECMWF, shows the ENSO anomalies and forecasts for developments through November 2026 in Niño3.4 (left panel) and in Niño1+2 (right panel), indicating that the next El Niño will emerge and strengthen in the course of 2026.

[ from earlier post ]

How large could the temperatures rise be?

Sea ice is low at both poles. The image below shows Antarctic sea ice on December 31, 2025. Massive loss of albedo amplifies the decline of Antarctic sea ice and the decline of the snow and ice cover over Antarctica, resulting in elevated global temperatures that could persist through September 2026, when Arctic sea ice typically reaches its minimum extent. 

As discussed above, moving from the depth of a La Niña to the peak of a strong El Niño in itself could make a difference in the global temperature of more than 0.5°C. Add up feedbacks and the combined impact could trigger a huge temperature rise, since the rise is already accelerating, due to the self-amplifying nature of feedbacks such as albedo loss and more water vapor in the atmosphere, and due to further feedbacks that come with the temperature rise itself such as ocean stratification.

[ image from earlier post ]

[ from earlier post ]

Oceans are still absorbing an estimated 91% of the excess heat energy trapped in the Earth's climate system due to human-caused global warming. If just a small part of that heat instead remains in the atmosphere, this could constitute a huge rise in air temperature. Heat already stored in the deeper layers of the ocean could also rise up and commit Earth to further additional surface warming in the future.

The image on the right illustrates how the temperature rise can cause oceans to take up less heat, resulting in more heat remaining in the atmosphere. 

[ from earlier post ]

The above image shows very high temperature anomalies forecast around Antarctica and over the Arctic Ocean for September 2026, at a time when Arctic sea ice volume is expected to be very low. Arctic sea ice volume is at a record low for the time of year, it has been at a record daily low for well over a year. The image below shows Arctic sea ice volume through December 30, 2025.

There is a huge danger that seafloor methane and methane from thawing terrestrial permafrost will add strongly and abruptly to the temperature rise, as discussed in many earlier posts such as this one and as illustrated by the screenshot below.

[ screenshot from earlier post ]

The methane danger is further illustrated by the image below that shows hourly average in situ methane measurements well above 2400 ppb (parts per billion). The image is adapted from an image issued by NOAA December 31, 2025. The image shows methane recorded over the past few years at the Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory (BRW), a NOAA facility located near Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska, at 71.32 degrees North latitude.

Climate Emergency Declaration

UN secretary-general António Guterres recently spoke about the need for “a credible global response plan to get us on track” regarding the international goal of limiting the global temperature rise. “The science demands action, the law commands it,” Guterres said, in reference to a recent international court of justice ruling. “The economics compel it and people are calling for it.”

What could be added is that the situation is dire and unacceptably dangerous, and the precautionary principle necessitates rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the outlook, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as described in posts such as this 2022 post and this one and as discussed in the Climate Plan group.

Links

• AGU poster

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/agu-poster.html

• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• NSIDC - Sea Ice Today
https://nsidc.org/sea-ice-today

• Tropicaltidbits.com
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com

• Copernicus
https://pulse.climate.copernicus.eu

• NOAA - ENSO: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

• NOAA - ENSO sea surface temperatures
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/enso/sst

• ECMWF
https://charts.ecmwf.int/products/seasonal_system5_nino_annual_plumes

• The threat of seafloor methane eruptions
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-threat-of-seafloor-methane-eruptions.html

• Feedbacks in the Arctic
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/feedbacks.html

• NOAA - Global Monitoring Laboratory - Data Visualisation - flask and station methane measurements
https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv

• Focus on Antarctica
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/09/focus-on-antarctica.html

• Danish Meteorological Institute - Arctic sea ice volume and thickness
https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php

• University of Bremen - sea ice concentration and thickness
https://seaice.uni-bremen.de/start

• When Will We Die?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-will-we-die.html

• Pre-industrial
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/pre-industrial.html

• Extinction
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html

• Transforming Society
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/transforming-society.html

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

• Climate Emergency Declaration
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climate-emergency-declaration.html

El Nino 2026, extinction?

El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a climate pattern that fluctuates from El Niño to La Niña conditions and back. El Niño raises temperatures, whereas La Niña suppresses temperatures. This year, there have been neutral to La Niña conditions, as illustrated by the image below, which also shows that over the past few months, there has been a zigzag pattern of rises and falls around the mean sea surface temperature in Niño 3.4, an area in the Pacific (inset) that is critical to the development of El Niño. 

    [ click on images to enlarge ]

On September 13, 2025, the temperature reached an anomaly in this area of -0.54°C versus 1991-2020, indicating that La Niña conditions are likely to dominate late 2025/early 2026. The inset on the above image shows the Niño 3.4 area and sea surface temperature anomalies versus 1991-2020 on that day.

The image on the right, adapted from NOAA, shows the ENSO outlook (CFSv2 ensemble mean, black dashed line) favoring La Niña late 2025/early 2026. 

[ image from earlier post ]

The image on the right, adapted from ECMWF, shows an ENSO forecast for developments in Niño3.4 through August 2026, indicating that the next El Niño may emerge early 2026 and grow in strength in the course of 2026.

Rising temperature in absence of El Niño

Critical is the temperature on land, which is after all where people live. The image below shows that in 2025, monthly temperature anomalies (from 1880-1920) on land have fallen from a high of +2.93°C in January 2025 to +1.45°C in July 2025, in line with the temperature suppression that comes with a move into La Niña. 

The anomaly was +2.93°C in January 2025, very close to +3°C. Note that when using a genuinely pre-industrial base, anomalies can be much higher than depicted in the above image. While anomalies have come down somewhat, the anomaly rose again to +1.82°C in August 2025, which could indicate that acceleration of the temperature rise is overwhelming the temperature suppression that comes with a move into La Niña. 

The sea surface temperature anomaly keeps rising, in particular from the latitudes of 30° and higher north, as illustrated by the image below. 

Adding to fears that the temperature rise is accelerating despite the absence of El Niño is the most recent rise of the global temperature anomaly. As illustrated by the image below, the global temperature anomaly versus 1991-2020 has risen strongly recently, from +0.21°C on July 4, 2025, to +0.83°C on September 20, 2025. 

A +3°C temperature rise constitutes an important threshold, since humans will likely go extinct with such a rise, as illustrated by the image below. 

[ from the post When will humans go extinct? ]

   [ from: When Will We Die? ]

Recent research led by David Fastivich finds that, historically, vegetation responded at timescales from hundreds to tens of thousands of years, but not at timescales shorter than about 150 years. It takes centuries for tree populations to adapt - far too slow to keep pace with today’s rapidly warming world.

Note that healthy vegetation relies not only on temperature, but also on the presence of good soil, microbes, rain, soil nutrients, pollinators, habitat, groundwater and an absence of toxic waste, pests and diseases.

A 2018 study by Strona & Bradshaw indicates that most life on Earth will disappear with a 5°C rise (see box on the right). Humans, who depend on a lot of other species, will likely go extinct with a 3°C rise, as discussed in the earlier post When Will We Die?

The map below shows the size of the population rather than the size of the territory, decreasing the size of Canada, Mongolia, Australia, and Russia, and highlighting how many people are vulnerable to heat stress.

[ cartogram from Ourworldindata.org - click to enlarge ]

In the video below, Herb Simmens discussed the situation with Peter Carter and Paul Beckwith. 

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.

Links

• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• NOAA - Climate Prediction Center - ENSO: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

• ECMWF - El Niño forecast
https://charts.ecmwf.int/products/seasonal_system5_nino_annual_plumes

• NASA - surface temperature analysis - gistemp 
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp

• When Will We Die?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2019/06/when-will-we-die.html

• Population cartogram
https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-cartogram

discussed on Facebook at: 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/arcticnews/permalink/10163232140864679

• Transforming Society
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/transforming-society.html

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

• Climate Emergency Declaration
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climate-emergency-declaration.html

Trend warns about further acceleration of the temperature rise

The image below shows NASA temperature anomalies for January-March 2025 versus a 1951-1980 base. 

The image below is the same, but the anomaly is more closely specified (12 colors instead of 11), adding a pink color for anomalies higher than 6°C, by Makiko Sato. This highlights the very high anomalies that occurred over the Arctic Ocean during La Niña conditions, i.e. despite suppression of the temperature.  

The image below shows NASA data through March 2025. The monthly temperature anomaly has now been more than 1.5°C higher than the 1903-1924 custom base (not pre-industrial) for 21 consecutive months (July 2023 through March 2025). Anomalies are rising rapidly, the red line (2-year Lowess Smoothing trend) points at 2°C rise by the end of 2026.

On April 10, 2025, the global surface air temperature was 14.87°C (or 58.77°F), the highest temperature on record for this day. The image below shows ERA5 daily temperature anomalies from end 2022 through April 11, 2025, with two trends added, a black linear trend and a red cubic (non-linear) trend that reflects stronger feedbacks and that follows ENSO (El Niño/La Niña) conditions more closely. This red trend warns about further acceleration of the temperature rise. 

The shading added in the above image reflects the presence of El Niño conditions that push up temperatures (pink shading), La Niña conditions that suppress temperatures (blue shading), or neutral conditions (gray shading). Meanwhile, NOAA has announced that La Niña conditions have ended, meaning that temperatures are no longer suppressed. 

Such short-term variables are smoothed out in the black linear trend that shows a steady rise of 0.5°C over 3½ years (from 2023 to half 2026), a much steeper rise than the 1.1°C rise over 81 years (from 1941 to 2022) of a linear trend in an earlier image. 

The steep rise in temperatures in 2023 is also reflected in ocean temperatures. The image below shows sea surface temperature anomalies through March 2025, with a very steep rise visible until August 2023 due to El Niño, followed by a fall that was only half its size, while temperature anomalies look set to rise again now that La Niña is over. The red line (two-year Lowess Smoothing) indicates a steep rise that points at a continued steep rise far beyond 2026. 

The image below shows NOAA's ENSO (Nino3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies forecast) outlook issued April 6, 2025, with rising El Niño probabilities.

     [ Arctic sea ice volume, click to enlarge ]

A new El Niño may emerge soon and the red curved trend warns that the temperature rise could accelerate further, rising beyond 2°C (from 1991-2020) in the course of 2026. Such acceleration could occur not only due to El Niño but also due to feedbacks and further mechanisms such as loss of sea ice. 

High ocean temperatures result in low Arctic sea ice volume, as illustrated by the image on the right and as discussed in this earlier post.

As the likeliness of a huge and accelerating temperature rise, the severity of its impact, and the ubiquity and the imminence with which it will strike all become more manifest—the more sobering it is to realize that a mere 3°C rise may suffice to cause human extinction.

[ from earlier post ]

Climate Emergency Declaration

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.

Links

• NASA - temperature anomalies

https://data.giss.nasa.gov

• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• Copernicus
https://climate.copernicus.eu

• NOAA - ENSO: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions - issued April 7, 2025
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

• Danish Meteorological Institute - Arctic sea ice volume and thickness
https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php

• Transforming Society
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/transforming-society.html

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

• Climate Emergency Declaration
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climate-emergency-declaration.html