The annual Arctic sea ice minimum has arrived once again, and as usual, it provides far less drama than the media headlines would suggest. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Arctic sea ice extent bottomed out on September 10th, 2025, at 4.60 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles). First, let’s look directly at NSIDC’s own words from their September 17th analysis:“On September 10, Arctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent of 4.60 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles). Here’s NSIDC’s own graph from Figure 1b, which tells the story clearly:Figure 1b from NSIDC: Arctic sea ice extent as of September 10, 2025 (blue line), compared with prior years. Here’s the ranking table directly from NSIDC:Table 1 from NSIDC: Top 10 lowest minimum Arctic sea ice extents (1979–2025).