Arctic – Antarctic Winter Sea Ice. © Trent Schindler/NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
NASA and NSIDC scientists say the Arctic winter sea ice is at a record low.
Sea ice grows and shrinks with the seasons in both the Arctic (left) and Antarctic (right), but overall, ice coverage has been declining since scientists began tracking it 50 years ago.
On March 22, 2025, Arctic winter sea ice reached its lowest peak on record, according to NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The ice covered 5.53 million square miles (14.33 million square kilometers), breaking the previous low of 5.56 million square miles (14.41 million square kilometers) set in 2017.
Each winter, sea ice forms and spreads across Arctic waters, but in recent years, less new ice has developed, and older, thicker ice has continued to decline. This winter continued the long-term shrinking trend, with peak ice coverage 510,000 square miles (1.32 million square kilometers) below the 1981–2010 average.
Meanwhile, in the Antarctic, summer sea ice shrank to 764,000 square miles (1.98 million square kilometers) on March 1, tying for the second-lowest minimum on record. This is 30% less than the 1.10 million square miles (2.84 million square kilometers) typical before 2010. Scientists define sea ice extent as the ocean area with at least 15% ice coverage.
With ice loss in both polar regions, global sea ice reached an all-time low this year. By mid-February, worldwide sea ice coverage had dropped by over a million square miles (2.5 million square kilometers) compared to pre-2010 levels—an area roughly the size of the eastern United States.
source NASA
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