Another Year, Another Non-Event – Watts Up With That?

The annual Arctic sea ice minimum has arrived once again, and as usual, it provides far less drama than the media headlines would suggest. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Arctic sea ice extent bottomed out on September 10th, 2025, at 4.60 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles).

That figure puts 2025 in a tie for 10th lowest in the satellite record, right alongside 2008 and 2010. But here’s the key point that gets lost in the breathless reporting:

• It’s been 13 years since the record low of 2012, and no new record has been set since.
• This year’s minimum is higher than the minimums of 2007, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2023, and 2024.
• And despite Al Gore’s infamous prediction of an “ice-free Arctic” by 2014, here we are with nearly 1.8 million square miles of ice still in place.

The ice, in other words, is still there — stubbornly refusing to cooperate with climate apocalypse narratives.

First, let’s look directly at NSIDC’s own words from their September 17th analysis:

“On September 10, Arctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent of 4.60 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles). The 2025 minimum shares the tenth lowest spot in the nearly 47-year satellite record with 2008 and 2010. While the last 19 years, from 2007 to 2025, are the lowest 19 sea ice extents in the satellite record, there has been no significant trend in September minimum extents over this time.”

That last line is crucial. While the long-term decline since 1979 is real, over the last two decades there has been no significant downward trend in September minimums. In other words: the so-called “death spiral” has been more like a wobble.

Here’s NSIDC’s own graph from Figure 1b, which tells the story clearly:

This year’s minimum of 4.60 million km² is:

• 1.21 million km² above the record low of 3.39 million km² set in 2012.
• 1.62 million km² below the 1981–2010 average, which NSIDC notes is about the size of Alaska.
• Reached on September 10, about four days earlier than the long-term median date of September 14.

Here’s the ranking table directly from NSIDC:

Notice carefully: 2012 still stands alone at the top (or bottom, depending on your perspective). Every year since then — including this year — has had more ice.

So much for the “runaway melt.”

The Gore Factor

No discussion of Arctic ice would be complete without revisiting one of the most infamous climate predictions ever made. In 2009, former Vice President Al Gore declared at COP15 that the Arctic could be “completely ice-free in the summer” as soon as 2014.

Well, here we are in 2025. Not only is the Arctic not ice-free, it has nearly 1.8 million square miles of ice still in place — larger than the entire landmass of India. Gore’s forecast has “missed” by an area bigger than Greenland and Alaska combined.

That’s not a rounding error. That’s a prediction failure of epic proportions. See more failures on our Failed Climate Prediction Timeline.

What the Satellite Record Really Shows

The satellite record, beginning in 1979, does indeed show an overall decline in September ice. According to NSIDC:

“The overall, downward trend in the minimum extent from 1979 to 2025 is 12.1 percent per decade relative to the 1981 to 2010 average. From the linear trend, the loss of sea ice is about 74,000 square kilometers (29,000 square miles) per year, equivalent to losing the state of South Dakota or the country of Austria annually.”

But again, they admit:

“This overall trend should be viewed with the caveat that there has been no significant downward trend in September minimum extents over the past two decades.”

That’s bureaucratic language for: “It’s flatlined since 2007.”

If climate models were right, we should have seen accelerating decline and likely another record low by now. Instead, the last 19 years have all occupied the same general band.

What About the Antarctic?

While this year’s Arctic minimum is being framed as “among the 10 lowest,” NSIDC also notes something rarely discussed in the media:

“In the Antarctic, sea ice extent has been tracking at the third lowest level in the satellite record for most of the growth season, but the maximum has not yet been reached.”

That matters because for decades, Antarctic sea ice was stable or even growing slightly — a fact that often irritated those wanting a clean, one-way narrative. Now it’s dipping, but NSIDC cautions that fluctuations are normal near the seasonal maximum.

In other words, variability is the rule, not the exception.

If one steps back from the year-to-year noise, a larger pattern emerges. The Arctic is not vanishing — it’s oscillating. Yes, the long-term baseline is lower than in the early 1980s. But the lack of a downward push since 2012 strongly suggests that natural variability plays a much larger role than climate models admit.

Solar cycles, ocean oscillations (such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation), and shifting wind patterns all play into the distribution and persistence of Arctic ice. Pretending this is purely about CO₂ levels is simplistic at best and misleading at worst.

The Arctic has been used as a poster child for climate alarm for nearly two decades. Predictions of an “ice-free summer” were leveraged to push policy, carbon taxes, and renewable mandates. Yet the reality on the ground — or in this case, on the ice — has not matched the rhetoric.

If a business executive’s forecast missed this badly, they’d be fired. If a TV weather forecaster got it wrong for 13 years straight, viewers would stop tuning in. But in climate science, failed predictions are simply ignored while the climate doom narrative rolls on.

Conclusion: Still Plenty of Ice

So, where does this leave us in 2025?

• The Arctic minimum this year was 4.60 million km².
• It ranks only 10th lowest, tied with two other years.
• No new record has been set for 13 years.
• There has been no significant downward trend for 20 years.
• Al Gore’s 2014 prediction is still off by nearly 2 million square miles.

In short: the Arctic is not disappearing. It remains icy, unpredictable, and inconvenient to those who wish to use it as a scare tactic.

As NSIDC itself admits, the flattening trend is still a subject of “active debate” among scientists. Perhaps it’s time for policymakers and journalists to debate it as well — instead of pretending the science is “settled.”

Author’s Note: As always, I encourage readers to view the NSIDC’s own analysis here and examine the figures and tables firsthand. The data tells a more interesting story than the headlines ever will.

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