The Arctic continues to warm faster than other parts of the planet and is seeing record high temperatures and record low sea ice levels. That's according to the 2025 Arctic Report Card, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released today.
For the past 20 years, the report has documented changes in snow and sea ice cover as well as air and ocean temperatures in the northern part of the globe. In that time, it’s shown that the Arctic’s annual temperature has increased at more than double the global rate of temperature changes.
The warming is affecting the environment and food security for those who call the region home, said Hannah-Marie Ladd, one of the report’s authors.
“These changes cascade directly into people's lives, affecting fisheries, coastal safety and subsistence harvests,” Ladd said. “We are no longer just documenting warming. We are witnessing an entire marine ecosystem, which is tied to our economies and culture, transform within a single generation.”
Ladd is the director of Indigenous Sentinels Network, a program established by the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island to help Alaska Native communities monitor their environment. She was one the speakers from various research agencies who detailed this year's Arctic Report Card at a press conference at the American Geophysical Union conference in New Orleans.
The report, which is the work of more than 100 authors from 13 countries, showed that the Arctic region experienced some of the highest temperatures since the turn of the century.
“October 2024 through September 2025, the Arctic experienced the highest temperatures on record since at least 1900,” said Matthew Druckenmiller, a senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado and lead editor of the report. “This included the warmest autumn, the second warmest winter and the third warmest summer ever observed.”
Warming linked to the ferocity of ex-Typhoon Halong
The rapid warming of the Arctic is amplified by the loss of reflective sea ice and snow, Druckenmiller said. The report showed that last March, Arctic winter sea ice reached its lowest annual maximum extent in nearly 50 years of satellite records.
Druckenmiller said that the oldest, thickest sea ice has also declined by over 95% since the ‘80s, primarily remaining in areas north of Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago.
“Thinner ice is then much more mobile with wind and current, and much less resilient against warming waters,” he said. “This means much more unpredictable ice conditions for those both living and working in the Arctic.”
Druckenmiller said that the report underscored the interconnectedness of Arctic changes. He said one example is the remnants of Typhoon Halong, which battered Western Alaska in October
“Prior to this storm, temperatures in the Bering Sea were well above normal, which contributed to the strength. The storm brought hurricane force winds, storm surge and catastrophic flooding, which displaced nearly 1,500 residents from across the region,” he said. “Still today, these communities are assessing the damage and trying to figure out how to resume their lives.”
Druckenmiller said that because of the amplified warming in the Arctic, scientists expect further disruptive changes and events like that storm.
Fewer fish in rusting rivers
Arctic rivers are changing, too. The report highlighted an emerging phenomenon called rusting rivers. That’s likely caused when permafrost thaw allows groundwater to seep deeper and interact with mineral deposits, turning some streams and rivers a rusty orange color.
In Alaska, over 200 streams turned orange in recent years. That affected aquatic biodiversity and water quality, said Abigail Pruitt, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Davis who studies rusting rivers.
“Within Kobuk Valley National Park, we observed the complete loss of juvenile Dolly Varden and Slimy Sculpin in a tributary to the Akillik river when it turned orange,” Pruitt said. “Beyond the effects on fish, rusting rivers may impact drinking water supplies to rural communities as well.”
Partnerships between Indigenous communities and scientists
The report also highlights how Indigenous communities have been observing the changes in their environments and collaborating with scientists to better understand those changes.
Ladd, with the Indigenous Sentinels Network, described one example of such work – the BRAIDED Food Security Project. She said that St. Paul residents collect samples of harvested traditional foods, like seabirds, marine mammals and halibut. Harvesters donate those samples to a recently established and tribally owned laboratory at the Bering Sea Research Center. Then local employees, with the help from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, analyze the samples for contaminants like mercury.
“What's happening on St Paul Island offers a model for resilience and collaborative research everywhere,” Ladd said.
She went on to say that Indigenous leadership and participation would be essential to future efforts toward understanding and adapting to the changing Arctic.
