Copernicus: Ice caps reach historic low

“Ice caps at a historic low and temperatures still at record highs: after 2024 and its series of climate records and disasters, the winter of 2025 will once again highlight global warming, continuing over two years of historically high temperatures.

In February, the cumulative sea ice extent around both poles reached a new historic low, and the three months corresponding to winter in the Northern Hemisphere (December-February) were almost as warm as last year’s record, according to the monthly bulletin published today by the European observatory Copernicus.

‘February 2025 is in line with the record or near-record temperatures observed over the past two years’ due to global warming, emphasizes Samantha Burgess of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in a press release. ‘One of the consequences of a warmer world is the melting of sea ice,’ which is ‘at a historic low,’ adds Burgess.

On February 7, Copernicus states, ‘a historic low was reached for the cumulative ice extent’ around the Arctic and Antarctic.”