NASA has released a new visualization showing the Arctic sea ice retreat from its March 15 maximum through the 2026 annual minimum on September 12. The animation compresses nearly six months of satellite observations into seconds.nnNASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center estimate the minimum extent at 1.78 million square miles (4.60 million square kilometers), tying 2008, 2010 and 2025 for the 10th-lowest minimum in the continuous satellite record. It was not a record low.nnThe visualization uses data from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s AMSR2 instrument aboard the GCOM-W1 satellite. A yellow boundary marks the 1981–2010 average minimum extent.nnVIDEO: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a005600/a005677/arctic_sea_ice_min_2026_vertical_1920p60.mp4nnNASA says the past 20 years, from 2007 through 2026, account for the 20 lowest annual Arctic sea ice minimum extents observed since continuous satellite measurements began in late 1978.nnCredit: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio. Visualization by Trent L. Schindler; AMSR2 data courtesy of JAXA.nnSources: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio; NASA Earth Science; National Snow and Ice Data Center.
