Look at this dip during the last week !
Source : ClimateReanalyser.org and NSIDC
Could it be an anomaly with satellite imaging, a random statistical blip, or is something huge just about to start ?
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
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No. This is a sharper momentary dip. Sort of expected with climate change.
If you look at the summer months for 2025, (January and February for the southern hemisphere) you can see ice sheet area declined far more rapidly rapidly than 2026 did.
Rates of change, particularly ones that are of more recent data, can be very misleading. Now if the same rate of change continued through the end of August, then it would definitely be anomalous.
Climate change does not make immediate impacts like this. Climate change makes the trend of the WHOLE line lower, and more volatile. Notice that 2025 and 2026 lines are at the lower end of the graph.
One (ugly) way to understand this chart better would be the area under the curve for a given year. As 2026 isnt over yet, you cant do this reliably beyond the most recent data point.
The "big" thing then would be if the result for each year was successively lower.
I know all that, but we also had two years well above the other ones regarding sea surface temperature : 2023 and 2024. Now we seem to be heading for the strongest El Nino ever recorded, even by a wide margin. So I'm now expecting the unexpected. Let's hope you're right.