Arctic Sea Ice Maximum 2026

  • Released Thursday, March 26, 2026
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Arctic sea ice maximum extent 2026, still image

Arctic sea ice maximum extent 2026, still image

After growing through the fall and winter, sea ice in the Arctic appears to have reached its annual maximum extent. The image above shows the ice extent—defined as the total area in which the ice concentration is at least 15 percent—at its 2026 maximum, which occurred on March 15. On this day the extent of the Arctic sea ice cover peaked at 14.29 million square kilometers (5.52 million square miles), making it making it statistically tied with 2025's observation of 14.33 million square kilometers for the lowest yearly maximum extent on record. This year’s maximum is 1.36 million sq km below the 1981-2010 average Arctic maximum of 15.65 million sq km. This continues a downward trend scientists have observed over the last several decades.

Arctic sea ice maximum extent 2026, animation from 2025 minimum

Arctic sea ice maximum extent 2026, animation from 2025 minimum, vertical format

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Datasets used

  • BMNG (Blue Marble: Next Generation) [Terra and Aqua: MODIS]

    ID: 508
    Sensor: MODIS

    Credit: The Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).

    This dataset can be found at: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/BlueMarble/

    See all pages that use this dataset

  • 10 km Daily Sea Ice Concentration [SHIZUKU (GCOM-W1): AMSR2]

    ID: 795
    Type: Observed Data Sensor: AMSR2 Collected by: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

    Credit: AMSR2 data courtesy of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

    See all pages that use this dataset

  • 10 km Daily 89 GHz Brightness Temperature [SHIZUKU (GCOM-W1): AMSR2]

    ID: 796
    Type: Observed Data Sensor: AMSR2 Collected by: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

    Credit: AMSR2 data courtesy of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

    See all pages that use this dataset

Note: While we identify the data sets used on this page, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.

This page was originally published on Thursday, March 26, 2026.
This page was last updated on Thursday, March 26, 2026 at 11:43 AM EDT.