The Arctic experienced its warmest year on record, according to a report by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which paints a disturbing picture of this region, which is particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming.
Between October 2024 and September 2025, temperatures were 1.60°C warmer than the recorded average between 1991 and 2020, according to the annual Arctic report based on data dating back to 1900.
Tom Ballinger, one of the authors of the study, of the University of Alaska told AFP that it was "alarming" to see such warming in such a short period, calling the trend "unprecedented in recent years and perhaps thousands of years".
The year analyzed by NOAA includes the warmest autumn, the second warmest winter and the third warmest summer in the Arctic since 1900.
This region that surrounds the North Pole is affected by a phenomenon in which the region warms faster than the mid-latitudes. This mechanism is due to many factors, such as the loss of snow cover and sea ice.
An unprecedented retreat of Arctic sea ice was recorded in March 2025, with the lowest peak extent measured since satellite monitoring began.
Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) estimated that Arctic sea ice had reached its maximum extent on March 22, with an area estimated at 14.33 million square kilometers, the smallest measured in more than four decades of satellite monitoring.
Every winter, the ice that forms in the Arctic Ocean gradually expands to reach its maximum extent in March. However, due to human-caused global warming, the ice is finding it increasingly difficult to regrow.
An "immediate problem for polar bears, seals and walruses, who use the ice as a platform to move, to hunt, to give birth," explains Walter Meyer, co-author of the NSIDC report.
Although the melting of sea ice does not directly raise the ocean level, unlike the melting of ice on land (ice sheets, glaciers), it causes many effects due to climate change that threaten many ecosystems.
And this melting is also exacerbating climate change, because as the surface shrinks, the white sea ice reveals the ocean which, darker than the ice, reflects less solar energy and absorbs more.
As the Arctic warms faster than the rest of the planet, this reduces the temperature differences that help keep cold air trapped near the pole, allowing cold waves to spread more often to lower latitudes, according to several studies.
Rainfall in the region also reached record levels during the period between October 2024 and September 2025, also known as the "year of water" and ranked among the five wettest years since 1950.
