New Study Finds 20-Year Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Decline
Scientists suggest 'internal variability' was 'perhaps more' important than human-caused impacts.
by Kenneth Richard March 11, 2026, 10:07 AM
Despite several peer-reviewed, “overly alarmist” predictions of sea-ice-free summers by 2020 published in the 2010s, there has been “no statistically significant decline in September sea ice area since 2005.” [some emphasis, links added]
It is not just in the annual monthly minimum (September) that sea ice losses have paused for the past two decades; the “current pause in Arctic sea ice is seen in every single month throughout the year.”
The lack of statistically significant sea ice decline is “robust across observational datasets, metrics, and seasons,” and the length of the pause is unprecedented in the last 47 years of observations.
“[T]he 2005-2024 trend is the slowest rate of sea ice area loss over any 20-year period since the start of the satellite record.”
The paper’s polarbearsinternational.org press release details how “remarkable”
https://climatechangedispatch.com/arctic-sea-ice-pause-20-years/
