The Arctic sea ice area reached its annual minimum on September 9, 2025, as described in an earlier post. The image below shows Arctic sea ice volume through October 5, 2025, with Arctic sea ice volume at a record daily low, as it has been for more than a year.
The image below shows monthly Arctic sea ice volume in the past 25 years. Markers show April (blue) and September (red) volume, corresponding with the year's maximum and minimum. In 2025, Arctic sea ice reached a record low maximum volume as well as a record low minimum volume.
Warmer water flowing into the Arctic Ocean causes Arctic sea ice to lose thickness and thus volume, diminishing its capacity to act as a buffer that consumes ocean heat entering the Arctic Ocean from the North Atlantic. This means that - as sea ice thickness decreases - a lot of incoming ocean heat can no longer be consumed by melting the sea ice from below, and the heat will therefore contribute to higher temperatures of the water of the Arctic Ocean. The danger of this is described in the screenshot below.
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[ screenshot from earlier post ] |
Lower air temperatures are now causing rapid growth of Arctic sea area, which is sealing off the Arctic Ocean and this makes it more difficult for ocean heat to be transferred to the atmosphere, thus aggravating the danger that more ocean heat will reach sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean and will destabilize methane hydrates contained in sediments.
The methane danger is also illustrated by the image below, adapted from an image issued by NOAA October 2, 2025, showing hourly methane averages recorded at the Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory (BRW), a NOAA facility located near Utqiaġvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska, at 71.32 degrees North.
Danger Diagram and Assessment
The following can be added to the above diagram: Polar amplification of the temperature rise is causing the temperature difference between the Poles and the Equator to narrow, which can at times result in a distorted Jet Stream reaching high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, as well as in the Southern Hemisphere. This can lead to acceleration of the temperature rise in a number of ways, not only due to albedo loss, but also through loss of sea ice and oceans in their capacity to act as heat buffers, as illustrated by the images below.
The first image (below) shows a distorted Jet Stream moving over the North Pole and over Antarctica, at speeds of up to 160 km/h or 100 mph on October 9, 2025, 10:00 UTC.
The second image (below) shows the temperature anomaly on October 9, 2025, with high temperature anomalies showing up over the Arctic Ocean and over parts of Antarctica.
The third image (below) shows precipitable water anomalies on October 8, 2025, with very high precipitable water anomalies over the Arctic Ocean and over parts of Antarctica.

The increased snowfall thickens the snow on Antarctica with only little freshwater returning to the ocean. As a result, the Southern Ocean surface is getting more salty.
As discussed in an earlier post, saltier surface waters sink more readily, allowing heat from the deep to rise, which can melt Antarctic sea ice from below, even during winter, making it harder for ice to reform. This vertical circulation also draws up more salt from deeper layers, reinforcing the cycle.
This leads to a loss of sea ice (and thus loss of albedo and latent heat buffer), as well as less heat getting transferred from the atmosphere into the Southern ocean, while more heat can be transferred from the Southern Ocean to the atmosphere.
The Heat Buffer loss diagram below illustrates the above-described feedback mechanism.
Loss of the ocean heat buffer is a very dangerous feedback mechanism. The high (and rising) concentrations of warming aerosols, greenhouse gases and other gases are causing extra heat in the atmosphere. Some 90% of this extra heat used to be taken up by oceans. Even a small decrease in this percentage can dramatically increase air temperatures.
In the video below, Guy McPherson discusses The Rate of Environmental Change.
The very continuation of life on Earth is at stake and the sheer potential that all life on Earth may be condemned to disappear due to a refusal by some people to do the right thing, that should prompt the whole world into rapid and dramatic climate action.
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.
• Danish Metereological Institute - Arctic sea ice thickness and volume
https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php
• Record high increase in carbon dioxide
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/04/record-high-increase-in-carbon-dioxide.html
• Double Blue Ocean Event 2026?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/09/double-blue-ocean-event-2026.html
• Focus on Antarctica
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/09/focus-on-antarctica.html
• Extreme Heat Risk
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/08/extreme-heat-risk.html
• Saltier water, less sea ice
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/07/saltier-water-less-sea-ice.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
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[ image from earlier post ] |
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.
https://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php
• Record high increase in carbon dioxide
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/04/record-high-increase-in-carbon-dioxide.html
• Double Blue Ocean Event 2026?
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/09/double-blue-ocean-event-2026.html
• Focus on Antarctica
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/09/focus-on-antarctica.html
• Extreme Heat Risk
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/08/extreme-heat-risk.html
• Saltier water, less sea ice
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2025/07/saltier-water-less-sea-ice.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