One of my greatest interests is the visibility of predicted climate change in the surface area of northern sea ice. Therefore, dear readers, allow me to return once again to this topic, as I have not reported on it for some time in this English-language blog.
According to the August statistics, the average surface area of northern sea ice last August was the seventh smallest in its recorded history, which began in 1979. This was because, over the past year, the ice cover was larger than in August of 2024, 2020, 2019, 2016, 2012, and 2007.
This fact fits well with the already established picture that northern sea ice shrank rapidly from the 1990s until 2007, after which its surface area has shown nothing more than random variation. This reality is also illustrated in the figure I have drawn below, where the X-axis shows the ice area in millions of square kilometers and the Y-axis shows the years.
The maximum extent of Arctic sea ice is usually reached in September, so later this month we will see whether the amount of navigable, ice-free water in the Arctic Ocean exceeds that of previous years. Based on the above statistics, this does not seem likely—but neither does it seem entirely impossible.
The size of northern sea ice naturally has its own scientific significance, particularly in the context of the threat of climate change. In addition, it carries major practical geopolitical importance, since during President Trump’s administration the United States has observed that Russia is clearly ahead of others in this respect.
In this sense, the slowdown of ice melting is very good news for the free Western world, as it gives the U.S. and other nations interested in northern maritime regions more time to build up their own capacities for operating in the Arctic. At the same time, this particularly benefits my home country of Finland, which is indisputably the world leader in building icebreakers and stands ready to offer its expertise to other nations as well.
Northern Sea Ice Area Has Not Responded to Exceptionally High Temperatures
Ice Sheet Losses in Antarctica and Greenland
