Arctic Sea Ice Tied 10th-Lowest Despite a Cool, Stormy Summer as Loose Ice Let an Icebreaker Reach the North Pole
Nature World News | 22.10.2026 01:01
A cool, stormy Arctic summer should have been good news for sea ice. Instead, the ice still shrank to a minimum of 4.60 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles) on Sept. 12, tied for 10th-lowest in the satellite record, and the pack was so loose on the Atlantic side that a Swedish icebreaker carrying scientists and tourists sailed to the North Pole, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported in its October analysis.
