Arctic Report Card Flags Fast Warming, Record Heat and New Risks

Highlights

• Arctic warming is now more than twice the global average
• Sea ice and snow cover continue to decline at record rates
• Permafrost thaw is turning Arctic rivers orange and unsafe

The Arctic is unraveling faster and more profoundly, as well as more ominously for global stability, than anyone thought even a decade ago or, in many cases, even three years ago. The 2025 Arctic Report Card indicates unprecedented air temperatures, a growing lack of snow cover, shrinking sea ice, and increasing threats to communities. Warming is changing coasts and oceans, landscapes, urban areas, and wilderness. The Arctic is now warming at more than twice the global average, a harbinger of even more ominous trends in Earth's climate.

Arctic Hits Record Temperatures in 125 Years; Extreme Storms and Rapid Snowmelt Reshape Region

As per a Space.com report citing the Arctic Report Card prepared with NOAA and international researchers, the 2024–2025 water year recorded the highest Arctic air temperatures in 125 years. Autumn was the warmest on record, as were winter and summer. The report monitors trends in air and ocean heat, snow, sea ice, glaciers, and ecosystems that were collected with the help of Indigenous partners throughout the Arctic.

Warming air has increased the flow of water in the Arctic, resulting in record precipitation, extreme storms, and changes to river and snow patterns, along with a 50 percent reduction in June snow cover since the 1960s.

Arctic Sea Ice Hits Historic Lows as Glaciers Melt and Rivers Turn Rust-Colored

Sea ice dropped to a record-low winter maximum, summer sea ice has halved since the 1980s; older ice disappeared, glaciers melt, raising seas and risks.

As permafrost thaws, releasing iron-rich soils into over 200 rivers that turn them orange and acidic, the news is another dangerous new phase in the global Arctic.