From record warming to rusting rivers, 2025 Arctic Report Card shows a region transforming faster than expected

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This article was originally published on Talk. The publication posted an article on Space.com. Voices of Experts: Review and Insights.

The Arctic is transform faster and with more far-reaching consequences than scientists expected just 20 years ago, when first arctic report card assessed the state of the environment in the far north of the Earth.

Today's snow season is much shorter, sea ice is thinning and melting earlier, and wildfire seasons are getting worse. Rising ocean temperatures are changing ecosystems as non-Arctic marine species move north. Melting permafrost releases iron and other minerals into rivers, degrading the quality of drinking water. AND severe storms fueled warming seas putting communities at risk.

The past water year, from October 2024 to September 2025, brought Highest Arctic air temperature since records began 125 years agoincluding the warmest fall on record, as well as a winter and summer that were among the warmest on record. Overall, the Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as Earth generally.

For 20th Arctic Report CardWe worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an international team of scientists and Indigenous partners from across the Arctic, to track environmental changes in the North—from air and ocean temperatures to sea ice, snow, glaciers, and ecosystems—and their impacts on communities.

Together these vital signs expose the striking and interconnected transformations taking place that are increasing the risks for the people who live there.

Wetter Arctic with heavier precipitation

Warming in the Arctic is increasing the region's water cycle.

A warmer atmosphere increases evaporation, precipitation and meltwater from snow and ice, adding and moving more water through the climate system. This leads to increased rainfall and snowstorms, changes in river flow and ecosystems.

The Arctic region saw record amount of precipitation for the entire 2025 water year and for the springand the remaining seasons are among the top five wettest seasons since at least 1950. Extreme weather – especially atmospheric riverswhich are long narrow “rivers in the sky” carrying large amounts of water vapor – played a huge role.

These wetter conditions are changing the shape of the snowpack throughout the region.

Snow and ice loss accelerates warming and danger

Snow covers the Arctic most of the year, but this snow cover does not last long. In 2025, snow cover was above average during the cold winter months, but rapid spring melt resulted in The area covered with snow is much smaller than usual by June, continuing a six-decade decline. June snowpack in recent years has become half what it was in the 1960s.

Losing snow cover in late spring means losing the bright, reflective surface that helps keep the Arctic cool, instead allowing the ground to be directly heated by the sun, which raises temperatures.

Sea ice tells a similar story. Maximum per year sea ​​ice coverachieved in March was lowest in 47-year satellite record. Minimum sea ice cover in September was the 10th lowest.

Since the 1980s, summer sea ice extent has declined by about 50%, and the area covered by the oldest and thickest sea ice—ice that has been around for more than four years—has dropped by more than 95%.

Thinner sea ice cover is more susceptible to winds and currents and less resilient to warming waters. This means greater variability in sea ice conditions, creating new risks for people living and working in the Arctic.

Greenland's ice sheet will continue to lose mass in 2025as has happened every year since the late 1990s. As the ice sheet melts and dumps more icebergs into the surrounding seas, it contributes to global sea level rise.

Mountain glaciers also is losing ice at an extraordinary rate – The annual rate of glacier melt in the Arctic has tripled since the 1990s.

This creates an immediate local hazard. Glacial lake outburst floods—when water dammed by a glacier is suddenly released—are becoming more common. In Juneau, Alaska recent outburst floods on Mendenhall Glacier flooded homes and forced residents to flee their homes due to record levels of floodwaters.

Glacial retreat can also contribute to the catastrophic effects of landslides. After the retreat of the South Sawyer Glacier Tracy Arm landslide in southeast Alaska In August 2025, a tsunami struck the narrow fjord and rose nearly 1,600 feet (almost 490 meters) out the other side. Fortunately, there were no cruise ships in the fjord, which regularly call here.

Record warm oceans cause storms and ecosystem shifts

Arctic Ocean surface waters gradually warm upwith temperatures in August 2025 being among the highest ever measured. In some areas of the Atlantic sector, sea surface temperatures were as much as 13 degrees Fahrenheit (7.2 Celsius) above the 1991-2020 average. Parts of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas were cooler than normal.

Warm water in the Bering Sea set the stage for one of the most devastating events of the year: Former typhoon Halongwhich fed on unusually high ocean temperatures and then hit western Alaska with hurricane-force winds and catastrophic flooding. Some villages, including Kipnuk and Quigillingok, were badly damaged.

As seas warm, powerful Pacific cyclones, drawing energy from warm water, reach higher latitudes and stay strong longer. Since 1970, four former typhoons have occurred in the Alaska Arctic.and three of them arrived in the last four years.

The Arctic also sees warmer, saltier waters of the Atlantic Ocean intrude north into the Arctic Ocean.. This process, known as atlantification, weakens the natural layer of water that once protected sea ice from deeper ocean heat. This is already leading to increased sea ice loss and changes in the habitat of marine life, e.g. change in timing of phytoplankton productionwhich provides the base of the ocean food web and increases the likelihood of harmful algal blooms.

From the “borealization” of the ocean to the greening of the tundra

Warming seas and decreasing sea ice are allowing southern or boreal marine species to move north. In the northern part of the Bering and Chukchi seas. Arctic species have declined sharply – by two thirds and half, respectively – while the populations of boreal species increase.

A similar “borealization” is taking place on land. Satellite data shows that the productivity of tundra vegetation, known as “tundra greenness,” has reached its peak. third highest level in 26-year record in 2025, part of a trend driven by longer growing seasons and warmer temperatures. However, greening is not universal: the incidence of browning caused by wildfires and extreme weather conditions is also increasing.

Summer 2025 marked the fourth year in a row Above average wildfire area in northern North America. Almost 1600 square miles (over 4,000 square kilometers) burned in Alaska and over 5000 square miles (more than 13,600 square kilometers) burned in the Northwest Territories of Canada.

Melting permafrost turns rivers orange

As permafrost—the frozen soil underlying much of the Arctic—continues prolonged warming and thawone of the new consequences is the spread rusty rivers.

As thawing soils release iron and other minerals, more than 200 watersheds in Arctic Alaska are now turning orange. These waters have higher acidity and higher levels of toxic metals, which can contaminate fish habitats and drinking water, as well as impact livelihoods.

In Kobuk Valley National Park in Alaska, a tributary of the Akillik River. lost all my youth Dolly Varden and slimy goby fish after the stream's acidity suddenly increased and the stream turned orange.

Arctic Communities Lead New Monitoring Efforts

The rapid pace of change underscores the need for strong Arctic monitoring systems. However, many government-funded observing networks face funding shortages and other vulnerabilities.

At the same time, indigenous communities are making new efforts.

Arctic report card details how the residents of St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea spent more than 20 years building and operating their own observing system, relying on research partnerships with outside scientists while maintaining control over monitoring, data, and sharing of results. Indigenous Guardian Network monitors environmental health, from mercury in traditional foods to coastal erosion and fish habitat, and helps build community resilience to climate change in one of the fastest changing environments on the planet.

The Arctic faces threats not only from climate change; it is also a region where problems of ecosystem health and pollution are acute. In this sense, the Arctic represents an advantageous point for solving triple planetary crisis climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

Over the next 20 years, the Arctic will continue to change, with changes felt by communities and economies across the planet.