Antarctic sea ice has reached its maximum extent for the year, clocking in at the second lowest in a record stretching back to 1979, according to provisional data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC).
Over the past two years, Antarctic sea ice has been “way outside anything we have witnessed in our satellite record for their winter months”, an expert tells Carbon Brief.
Meanwhile, at the Earth’s other pole, the Arctic reached its summer minimum extent on 11 September, ranking as the seventh lowest on record, according to the NSIDC.
The organisation notes that “the last 18 years are the lowest 18 Arctic sea ice extents in the satellite record”.
The combination of below-average Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extents means that global sea ice extent has been at near-record lows over the past six months.
Antarctic maximum
For decades, scientists have been using satellite data to track the annual cycle of sea ice growth and melt at the world’s poles. This is a key way to monitor the “health” of sea ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic.
This year, Antarctic sea ice extent reached its annual maximum extent of 17.2m square kilometres (km2) on 19 September, according to the NSIDC. This is the second lowest in a satellite record stretching back 46 years, and 1.6m km2 smaller than the 1981-2010 average maximum, the NSIDC notes.
However, the NSIDC cautions that there is “some uncertainty in the estimate and date of the maximum because of an outage in the input source data” over 12-18 September.
Dr Zack Labe is a research physical scientist at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. He tells Carbon Brief that there is ongoing research in the polar community to understand whether Antarctic sea ice is undergoing a “regime shift”.
He adds that the past two years have been “way outside anything we have witnessed in our satellite record for their winter months” for Antarctic sea ice.
For example, Dr Ariaan Purich – from the school of Earth, atmosphere and environment at Monash University – explains to Carbon Brief:
“Our research suggests ocean warming has been important in pushing sea ice into this low-coverage state, and we also see preliminary indications of changed sea ice behaviour, suggesting that the underlying processes controlling Antarctic sea ice coverage may have altered.”
Global sea ice extent – a metric that combines Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent – is currently tracking near the record low extent set last year.
The graphic below shows global sea ice extent over 1978-2024, where red indicates the 2024 extent and shades of blue indicate different years over 1978-2023 (darker colours indicate more recent years).
Labe tells Carbon Brief that global sea ice extent is an “unconventional metric”, but says it “really summarises the state of polar climate right now, which is that sea ice is unusually low all across the high latitude regions of our planet”.
Record-breaking Antarctic season
The Antarctic has seen a record-breaking year. In September 2023, Antarctic sea ice reached a new all-time low maximum extent, sparking widespread media attention. In the year that followed, sea ice extent has since continued to track near record lows.
On 20 February 2024, the Antarctic hit its annual minimum, tying with 2022 for the second-lowest minimum in the 46-year satellite record. Dr Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC told Carbon Brief at the time that more warm ocean water was reaching the surface, melting ice and keeping more ice from forming.
He said that we “must wait and see” whether this is a “temporary effect” or if the Antarctic has entered a “new regime”.
Antarctic sea ice extent “expanded slowly” throughout March, and ended the month tied with several other years for third-lowest sea ice extent on record for the time of year, according to the NSIDC.
Throughout April, Antarctic sea ice extent continued to grow “relatively uniformly”. The continent saw temperatures of 3-5C above average in the west, while in the east, temperatures were 4-7C below average, the NSIDC adds.
Throughout May 2024, the rate of growth was slow relative to the 1981-2010 average, but “still much faster than last year”, the NSIDC says. And into June, Antarctic sea ice continued to track “well below all previous years except for 2023”, it adds.
The NSIDC finds that by the end of June, sea ice extent was more than 2m km2 below the 1981-2010 average, but still 500,000km2 above the exceptionally-low 2023 extent for the time of year.
By late July, Antarctic sea ice extent was “very close to the levels” seen in 2023. By the end of July, Antarctic sea ice was more than 2.1m km2 below the 1981-2010 average, and 190,000 km2 above 2023 levels, the NSIDC says.
The graphic below shows Antarctic sea ice extent between 1978 and 2024, where red indicates the 2024 extent and shades of blue indicate different years over 1978-2023 (darker colours indicate more recent years).
After slow growth from May to July, Antarctic sea ice began to “rapidly expand” in August, according to the NSIDC. It says “ice growth for the first two weeks of August was 1.5m km2 per day, among the fastest ice growth rates seen in the 46-year record for this time of year”.
However, growth “stalled” over 16-25 August and, by the end of the month, Antarctic sea ice extent stood at 16.86m km2 – the second lowest in the satellite record for that date ,the NSIDC says.
It notes that sea ice extent is “particularly low in the far eastern Weddell Sea, the south-west Indian Ocean and in the Amundsen Sea”.
Arctic minimum
At the other end of the world, Arctic sea ice extent has been melting towards its annual minimum for the past six months. It reached its minimum in September, and has now begun to grow again.
Back on 14 March, the Arctic hit its annual maximum, which was the 14th lowest in the satellite record. The NSIDC finds that despite favourable winds that encouraged sea ice formation, the maximum sea ice extent was 640,000km2 smaller than the 1981-2010 average maximum.
As temperatures warmed in the Arctic, sea ice continued to melt. By the start of April 2024, Arctic sea ice extent had dropped by about 278,000km2 below the March maximum, the NSIDC says.
April sea ice loss in the Arctic proceeded at a near-average rate overall, with most ice loss in the Bering Sea and Sea of Okhotsk, according to the NSIDC. The average Arctic sea ice extent for April 2024 was 14.12m km2, placing it 16th lowest in the satellite record.
The NSIDC says that although average global temperatures in April were at a record high, temperatures in the Arctic were “well below average” by up to 3-5C in some regions.
“This May, early ice loss in the eastern part of Hudson Bay was striking,” the NSIDC says. Usually, the Hudson Bay is “nearly completely ice covered through May”, it adds. However, this year saw unusually “strong and persistent” winds from the east push ice from the eastern coast into open water, resulting in record low sea ice extent in the Hudson Bay.
The NSIDC notes that by 1 June 2024, sea ice extent in the Hudson Bay was 205,000km2 below the 1981-2010 average – 65,000km2 below the previous record low set in 2015.
Arctic sea ice extent in June retreated more slowly than usual and, by the end of the month, it was “tracking above all years since 2012 except for 2013 and 2015”, it adds.
July is the warmest month in the Arctic and sees the most rapid sea ice loss, the NSIDC says. It finds that Arctic sea ice “retreated rapidly” in July. The region lost 113,000km2 of ice per day throughout the month – faster than the 1981-2010 average pace of 87,000km2 per day.
Ice loss during the month was greatest in the Kara and East Siberian Seas, Baffin Bay, Hudson Bay, and the Canadian Archipelago, the NSIDC says. Meanwhile, unusually for the time of year, a small patch of ice remained in the Hudson Bay by the end of the month. It adds that air temperatures were near average overall, with several areas slightly cooler than average.
By the end of July, Arctic sea ice extent was the third-lowest extent in the 46-year satellite record by the end of the month. Rapid Arctic ice loss continued into the first week of August, and by mid-August, sea ice extent was the fourth lowest on record, the NSIDC says.
The graphic below shows Arctic sea ice extent between 1978 and 2024, where red indicates the 2024 extent and shades of blue indicate different years over 1978-2023, where darker colours indicate more recent years.
Throughout August, ice loss slowed down in response to “waning sunlight and decreasing air temperatures”, as is typical for this time of year, the NSIDC says. By the end of August, Arctic sea ice extent was 4.55m km2 – the fourth lowest in the satellite record.
The map below shows Arctic sea ice average extent for September 2024, where the pink line shows the 1981-2010 average.
Arctic sea ice reached its annual minimum extent of 4.28m km2 on 11 September 2024, ranking as the seventh lowest in the 46-year satellite record.
The NSIDC adds that “the last 18 years are the lowest 18 Arctic sea ice extents in the satellite record”.
On thin ice
Labe tells Carbon Brief that Arctic sea ice this year has been “unusually thin”, explaining that the Arctic has seen “unusually low sea-ice concentration with the ice being more spread out and with more areas of open water found between the ice floes”.
This has resulted in near record-low total Arctic sea ice volume.
![Zack Labe on X/Twitter (@ZLabe): There was an accelerated loss of sea ice volume last month in the #Arctic. We are not far from a record low. Each line represents one year from 1979 [dark blue] to 2023 [dark red]. This year is shown in yellow - now updated through all of August 2024](https://breakingclimatechange.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/x.com_ZLabe_status_1833478263001518490-2-21.png)
Prof Alexandra Jahn is an associate professor at the University of Colorado’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. She tells Carbon Brief that natural variability has contributed to the observed loss of ice – “especially during the early 21st century”.
However, she adds that internal variability alone cannot completely explain the extent of the loss we have seen, and human-caused greenhouse gas emissions “are required to get an Arctic sea ice loss as large as observed”.
The post Antarctic sea ice maximum in 2024 is ‘second lowest’ on record appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Antarctic sea ice maximum in 2024 is ‘second lowest’ on record
Amira Odeh Quiñones is a hydrologist and Caribbean organiser for the 350.org climate campaign group
El Niño, likely to be one of the strongest in modern history, has arrived on Caribbean shores.
Drought is slowly creeping up on our islands. But unlike the fiery wildfires ravaging parts of Europe, there’s no smoke signalling the damage being done, no sirens to warn of the danger. Only announcements from public health officials to stay indoors and remain hydrated — as if outdoor workers and farming communities have the luxury to heed such advice.
During El Niño, strong atmospheric winds alter rain patterns and trap heat across the Caribbean. But while we have experienced El Niño many times before, it has become very visible in recent years how climate change is making this natural phenomenon worse.
Across the Greater Antilles, temperatures are soaring past 38°C (100°F), with real-feel indexes reaching a gruelling 43°C in parts of Puerto Rico where I live. Cuba has it worse. Widespread power outages mean that methods for cooling down are unavailable for most of the day, leaving millions of vulnerable people at risk of heat stroke when temperatures hit 38°C.
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During the last strong drought a decade ago, I had water only two days a week in my home. Today, there are many families whose taps are about to run completely dry. Water authorities have already begun strict rationing in some municipalities, with more on the list scheduled for rationing if conditions don’t change.
Water rationing is far more than an inconvenience; it is an immediate health risk. This means thousands of people need to constantly haul heavy buckets up flights of stairs just so they could bathe, cook, stay hydrated – the basics of survival.
Heat causes health problems
Puerto Rico is home to roughly 300,000 elderly residents. Many live alone, isolated and without support. They risk severe physical injury when carrying heavy water containers, and are wont to suffer from silent heat exhaustion in unventilated rooms.
Furthermore, when water shortages force residents to store water in open household containers, it inadvertently creates breeding grounds for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Paired with scorching temperatures that tend to shorten the mosquito breeding cycle, the region is facing explosive outbreaks of dengue fever that endanger our most vulnerable: children and the elderly.
The economic fallout is equally devastating. Dry fields mean millions of dollars in lost crops, forcing small agricultural businesses to collapse, needing urgent government relief to survive. Extreme fuel shortages have already paralyzed Cuba’s agricultural sector, cutting food output by 60% – the El Niño dry spell threatens to decimate it.
At sea, warmer ocean waters fuel massive influxes of sargassum seaweed. Rotting sargassum chokes our beaches, destroying the local tourism industry that so many working families rely on. Tangled seaweed also damages nets and boat engines, slashing fish catches and driving up equipment costs for local fishers.
In the south of Puerto Rico, the coastal town of La Parguera is currently witnessing a historic amount of sargassum on its shores. This has halted most of the boating activity in the area, which is the seaside town’s main tourist draw and economic driver.
All over the Caribbean, from town halls to local group gatherings, the story I hear is always the same: constant headaches, lost work hours, failing health, and a sense that quality of life is silently being stolen. The compounding effects of heatwaves, drought, and marine destruction are exhausting our people, our islands.
Climate change to blame
Climate change makes each El Niño year hotter and more damaging. Higher baseline global temperatures increase the energy and moisture available for extreme weather. Latest projections show that El Niño may push the monthly global average temperature past 2°C of warming for the first time in early 2027. In the Caribbean islands, that will not just be breaking records – it’ll be breaking lives.
Recently, I had the opportunity to share a panel with climate scientists behind what is known as the field of “attribution science” – or the science that compares today’s climate conditions to what the Earth’s climate would be like without human activity, particularly burning fossil fuels. They’re unequivocal: it’s no longer a question of whether extreme weather is caused by climate change, it’s just a question of how much.
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Attribution science recently got a boost from the U.S.’ top scientific advisory body. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recognized that researchers’ methods have advanced considerably in recent years, resulting in better assessments on how much extreme weather can be attributed to human-caused climate change. It noted that attribution findings could be relevant in some types of legal cases, including those seeking damages from oil companies for climate impacts.
This crisis, which is already taking a heavy toll on our communities’ survival, needs real, urgent, and structural action that goes beyond aid. With similar droughts now gripping parts of Asia and Africa, we’re falling into the familiar narrative of treating the looming humanitarian crisis as if no one was to blame, as if it is being caused solely by a natural phenomenon we can’t control.
It’s not. The world was already on fire before its regular visitor, El Niño, came. While we need humanitarian action, we need climate action too, in order to permanently put out the flames.
The post When taps run dry in the Caribbean, it’s not enough to blame El Niño appeared first on Climate Home News.
When taps run dry in the Caribbean, it’s not enough to blame El Niño
China has released a five-year plan dedicated to addressing climate change.
The 15th five-year plan for a national response to climate change is the latest in a series to outline in-depth climate and energy targets for the 2026-2030 period.
These include five-year plans for “building a Beautiful China”, developing a “new-type energy system” and developing renewable energy.
There are also separate “action plans” for the 2026-2030 period, such as for peaking carbon emissions.
China has pledged to peak its emissions before 2030 and reach carbon neutrality before 2060.
The new plan does not include any major new targets, instead consolidating and reaffirming existing policies.
Nevertheless, it includes significant signals on key policy areas, such as non-carbon dioxide (CO2) greenhouse gases, global climate governance and carbon markets.
Below, Carbon Brief examines some of the notable elements in the latest five-year plan and what it reveals about China’s policy direction through to 2030.
What does the climate plan cover?
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) released the plan in late July, in unison with 18 other government departments. These include the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning agency, and the National Energy Administration.
The document covers a range of topics, including CO2 emissions, other greenhouse gases (non-CO2 GHGs), carbon markets, carbon footprints, climate adaptation and international cooperation on climate change.
For the first time at the five-year plan level, the plan creates a comprehensive target system covering all areas of climate policy, say officials in a MEE Q&A.
They describe it as “the main policy instrument” for advancing China’s climate action during 2026-2030.
China rarely issues high-level multi-year policies dedicated to “responding to climate change”. In 2014, the NDRC published a plan on the topic running through to 2020, but this was not linked to a five-year plan period.
Qin Yan, principal analyst at ClearBlue Markets, tells Carbon Brief that the plan shows that China’s climate governance has reached “an unprecedented strategic level”.
She adds that the plan creates an “all-encompassing target system” to support China’s Paris Agreement climate pledges for 2030 and 2035.
In its 2030 pledge, China aimed to peak emissions “before 2030” and reduce carbon intensity – its emissions per unit of GDP – by more than 65% from 2005 levels.
Last year, president Xi Jinping personally announced China’s 2035 pledge to cut China’s greenhouse gas emissions to 7-10% below peak levels by 2035, while “striving to do better”.
The five-year plan marks a new phase in China’s climate policy, according to researchers at CIB Research, an economic research body affiliated with the Industrial Bank, whose largest shareholder is the Fujian provincial government.
Their analysis adds that the plan represents a broad effort to strengthen China’s climate-governance system, implementation mechanisms and underlying capacity.
Nevertheless, several headline targets and policies in the document simply reiterate already established plans.
These include:
- Cutting carbon intensity by 17% across the five years
- Reducing carbon intensity per product in industries under China’s carbon market by 3%
- Substituting fossil fuels with renewables
- Strengthening climate adaptation
- Supporting the “free flow” of cleantech
What does the plan say about non-CO2 GHGs?
The plan also goes into detail on China’s approach to non-CO2 GHGs. This includes reaffirming a target of an emissions “reduction capacity” from these gases totalling 30m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) by 2030, although the baseline is unclear.
The target previously appeared in the overarching five-year plan, as well as the plan for building a “Beautiful China”.
The goal refers to emissions reductions, which can be realised through implementing current non-CO2 emissions reduction policies and projects, says Chen Meian, programme director and senior analyst at the Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress (iGDP).
She adds that it is “relatively achievable”, with sources including increasing the number of coal-mine methane utilisation projects.
She points to an MEE explanatory note for a draft methodology under the China Certified Emission Reduction (CCER) scheme, China’s voluntary carbon-credit market. Chen says the note suggests that projects using ventilation air methane and coal-mine methane with concentrations below 8% alone could deliver around 20MtCO2e of reduction by 2030.
The note states that, currently, such projects are estimated to be able to “generate annual emission reductions of approximately 4.5MtCO2e”.
In addition, Chen says, measures targeting industrial nitrous oxide (N2O) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) could help make up the remainder needed to meet the target.
According to iGDP analysis of biennial reports submitted by China to the UNFCCC, China emitted around 14,000MtCO2e of GHGs in 2021, excluding land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF).
Non-CO2 GHGs accounted for around 2,700MtCO2e, or 19%, of the total, the majority of which was methane, as shown in the figure below.
China’s plans to curb these super-pollutants in the five-year period include coal-mine methane utilisation projects, end-of-pipe destruction technologies for HFCs and guidance on the use of catalysts to reduce N2O emissions.
The plan also calls for the recovery and replacement of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) in power equipment.
For Chen, the plan’s focus on SF6 control is particularly noteworthy. She says the gas is “finally receiving policy attention” and that proactive action is “timely and will help avoid future emissions growth” as China’s power system expands.
What does the plan say about global climate governance?
One of the plan’s clearest objectives for international cooperation is for China to play a more active role in global climate governance.
By 2030, it says China should markedly increase its “influence, guiding power, shaping power and moral appeal” in this area.
It says China’s climate action could also feed into the Global Governance Initiative, a policy initiative aimed at reforming the global governance system.
China will also aim to “build a new narrative on climate governance”, it adds.
Prof Thomas Hale, a professor in public policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, writes on LinkedIn that the plan “marks a major rhetorical shift” towards China being increasingly willing to “lead and shape” global climate action.
Another clear focal point for international cooperation is in carbon markets.
The plan calls for China to expand the global influence of its carbon market, such as through international rule-setting, cooperation on standards and by hosting the China Carbon Market Conference.
Qin says China’s more active role in global carbon pricing is already evident in the launch of the open coalition on compliance carbon markets with the EU and Brazil. This coalition is expected to adopt a work plan at the China Carbon Market Conference in September.
Qin also notes that China “could become the world’s largest [carbon] offset buyer” as its energy transition progresses.
The country would, therefore, “benefit from helping shape global rules under the Article 6 framework [for carbon trading under the Paris Agreement]”, she adds.
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The post Q&A: What is in China’s new five-year plan for climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What is in China’s new five-year plan for climate change?
About a quarter of the countries signed up to the Paris Agreement are still breaching its rules by failing to submit a new national climate plan, 18 months after the February 2025 deadline.
Forty-five nations had not submitted a plan known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC), according to the Paris Agreement Implementation and Compliance Committee’s (PAICC) newly-published report of its 7-10 July 2026 meeting. One, Oman, has published it since the meeting.
Twelve countries ignored the committee’s repeated attempts to find out why they had not yet produced a climate plan, the report said. They will be invited to the committee’s next meeting, from September 1-4, so it can identify the challenges and constraints they face.
Members of the committee are divided, as they were at their last meeting, on whether to name those countries publicly and will debate the question again in September.
The PAICC does not have any power to punish governments, as building these powers into the Paris Agreement was thought to be so controversial that it could have stopped some governments from joining, experts have previously told Climate Home News.
A key requirement of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement is that governments publish a more ambitious NDC every five years, setting targets to reduce their planet-heating emissions and outlining their policies to adapt to climate change, in order to meet the accord’s goals on limiting global warming and protecting people from its effects.
The latest set – the third round of plans, with new targets for 2035 – was due in 2025.
Some medium-sized emitters
Countries without an updated NDC include Egypt, Vietnam, Argentina and the Phillippines, all of which rank among the world’s 40 largest greenhouse gas emitters. The rest of the countries are smaller, poorer nations, with many in Africa or the Caribbean.
Some nations have argued that they cannot put together an NDC – which requires a significant amount of work in tracking emissions and consulting on how to curb them across the economy – because of exceptional circumstances. For example, a letter from a Sudanese official to the PAICC committee, seen by Climate Home News, says that the country’s civil war has led to the suspension of its NDC preparation.
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The US and Iran are not signed up to the Paris Agreement, although the US submitted a 2035 NDC under the Biden administration before Donald Trump pulled the US out of the UN climate accords.
The committee also expressed concern that the UN’s NDC registry continued to label the climate plans of countries that are no longer party to the Paris Agreement as “active”, according to its report. The US submission has since been archived.
Since the last PAICC meeting in March, ten countries have published NDCs. The committee did not name them but they include India, Algeria, Cameroon and Guyana.
The post Quarter of countries still missing UN climate plans 18 months after deadline appeared first on Climate Home News.
Quarter of countries still missing UN climate plans 18 months after deadline
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