Arctic sea ice reached its annual maximum extent of 14.29 million square kilometers on March 15 this year, slightly below last year's record maximum of 14.31 million square kilometers.

This new data reinforces scientists' findings that the declining trend in winter ice cover is continuing.

This year's maximum ice extent is approximately 1.3 million square kilometers below the 1981-2010 average, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

Meanwhile, in Antarctica, which has now entered autumn, the annual summer sea ice minimum was recorded at 2.58 million square kilometers on February 26 – 260,000 square kilometers below the 1981-2010 average. However, the figure is still above the record low of 1.79 million square kilometers set on February 21, 2023.

Mahmut Oguz Selbеsoglu, director of the Polar Research Center at Istanbul Technical University, said that glaciers and sea ice play a critical role in maintaining the planet's radiation balance. Simply put, it is the balance that supports life on Earth.

As the ice melts, this balance changes: evaporation increases, the greenhouse effect intensifies and global warming accelerates, creating a cycle of continuous ice loss, he said.

Selbesoglu noted that the melting is concentrated in the ice boundary areas in the Barents Sea, Bering Sea and peripheral areas of the North Atlantic.

The Arctic is warming at a rate four times higher than the global average, he said.

He explained that Arctic warming is driving sea ice decline and strengthening the effect of ocean sub-ice melting, meaning that even when the ice cover temporarily expands, it is thinner and therefore more susceptible and quicker to melting.

Selbesoglu noted that last year's sea ice maximum was both the lowest annual and historic level of all time.

"Almost all of the record low maximum values ​​have occurred within the last ten years. This is very significant because it shows us that there is a systematic and accelerating trend here – this is not just summer melting, but a reduction in the amount of ice that should form in winter. This is a result that shows a systematic and structural weakening of the system," he said.

He described the process as a chain of mutually causative events. As the white surface area decreases, more sunlight is absorbed rather than reflected, generating more heat – which in turn means more ice loss, more evaporation and a stronger greenhouse effect.

"This leads to climate change and severe meteorological reactions such as extreme weather events," Selbesoglu added.