ARCTIC: Arctic Ice Annual Minimum & more –25th Sep 2025

Góðan daginn from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 25th of September twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

This week marks an important annual milestone in the Arctic. NASA reported on Wednesday the 17th, that the extent of sea ice in the Arctic shrank to its annual minimum on the 10th of September. As winter begins to set in, the sea ice in the Arctic will now slowly grow.

According to NASA data, the sea ice coverage on the day of minimum extent was tied with two thousand eight for the 10th-lowest on record at 1.78 million square miles (4.6 million square kilometers).

Although twenty twenty-five didn’t set a new record for the lowest ice levels, it continued the downward trend of declining sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.

The hidden reasons behind the accelerating melting of the Arctic might have been discovered. The journal Science reported on Monday the 22nd that scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks have found ancient layers of salt beneath the Arctic permafrost. This salt is causing the frozen ground to melt even in cold temperatures by raising its melting point.

This hidden salt dates back over 100,000 years, during the last global warm period, when seas rose and flooded the earth with salty water. With the Arctic now melting from above due to warming air, and from below due to this salt, the researchers behind the study say the ground in the north could become very unstable, very soon.

The melting of the Arctic is full of surprises. The Associated Press reported on Thursday the 18th that a retreating glacier in southwest Alaska has revealed a new island that lay beneath it. The Alsek Glacier’s melt has been monitored through satellite images collected by Mauri Pelto, a glaciologist at Nichols College in Massachusetts, who noticed in early August that a new island, named Prow Knob, had appeared in the lake basin left behind as Alsek retreated.

Elsewhere in Alaska, a mining megadeal could reshape the Alaskan economy. The Alaskan news agency, the Northern Journal, reported on Wednesday the 17th, that the second largest mining deal in world history has been announced by Teck Resources and Anglo American, who intend to merge into a mining giant worth $53 billion US dollars.

Teck Resources already operated the Red Dog zinc mine, one of Alaska’s most profitable mines, but Red Dog is expected to run out of resources by twenty thirty-one. The new merger plans to embark on major exploration projects to discover new sources of zinc in Alaska, and keep the mining industry booming in the north.

On that note about important deals, Denmark and Greenland have reached an economic agreement that could reshape Greenland’s future, as the heads of the countries announced a new investment framework worth over $250 million US dollars on Tuesday the 16th.

The Danish government will be investing in a new airport and a deep-water port in Greenland, and funding healthcare costs for Greenlandic people living in Denmark, from twenty twenty-six to twenty twenty-nine. This deal hopes to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Greenland’s economy, while keeping the relationship between the two nations strong.

Not all important deals involve money. On Wednesday the 17th, the Canadian government announced that it had signed its final self-government agreement with the Tłegǫ́hłı̨ Got’įnę First Nation, in the Northwest Territories. This marks the end of twenty years of negotiations as the Tłegǫ́hłı̨ Got’įnę people will now be able to establish their own government, and make independent decisions across a wide range of areas like land, justice, and education, and build a governance system rooted in local culture.

Meanwhile, on Friday the 19th, the EU Commission announced its nineteenth sanctions package against Russia, specifically targeting the country’s Arctic natural gas facilities. This set of sanctions goes much further than previous packages. Rather than reducing or taxing imports of natural gas, the EU is putting an immediate ban on imports of liquid natural gas from Russia, which originates almost totally from the Arctic region.

In addition to this import ban, almost 120 Russian vessels have been sanctioned, and state oil companies Rosneft and Gazpromneft have been put under a full transaction ban. With Russia’s northern economic plans relying heavily on its gas industry, this could change the course of the Russian Arctic for years to come.

Speaking of expanding personal freedoms in northern Canada, on Wednesday the 17th, the government of the Nunavut territory announced it has amended legislation to include a non-binary option on residents' birth certificates. Nunavut was the last remaining jurisdiction in Canada to add the non-binary option. Canadians across the country can now celebrate the affirmation of the rights of everyone nationwide, regardless of gender identity.

Adam Arreak Lightstone, the politician who introduced the bill, said that there is no reason to discriminate against trans and non-binary people in his territory. However, he noted that the new regulation needs to be developed, as there is no timeline for residents to be able to identify as non-binary on their birth certificates yet.

There’s a new beginning in Sweden too, but for the country’s steel industry. The news agency, High North News, reported on Thursday the 18th that construction has begun on the Swedish company SSAB's new steel mill in Luleå in Northern Sweden. This mill will be groundbreaking for the industry because it produces steel with zero fossil fuel emissions, replacing the current blast furnace-based production system in favor of an electric mill.

SSAB has invested over $5 billion US dollars into developing this new technology and hopes to reinvent the steel industry, all while reducing Sweden’s total carbon emissions by seven percent.

Iceland is taking a different energy approach, hoping to create its first-ever oil industry. On Thursday the 18th, Icelandic newspaper RUV reported that the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce has urged the government to start oil exploration in the Dreki region, in Iceland’s northeast. The Chamber of Commerce speculates that there are between 6 and 12 billion oil barrels in the Dreki ocean area, which could bring up over $800 million US dollars to the Icelandic economy.

Iceland’s Environmental Ministry said earlier this year that oil exploration is not in the government’s agenda at the moment, but these new economic projections may make the government change its mind.

In other news, on Wednesday the 17th, Finnish broadcaster YLE reported that in the few days prior, Finnish and Norwegian first responders had joined forces for a two-day crisis readiness exercise. The cross-border exercise played out a scenario in which Norway requested emergency deliveries of medical supplies from EU stockpiles located in Finland.

This week’s exercise is all part of wider emergency response preparations that the emergency services of Norway, Finland, and Sweden are undertaking until the beginning of October.

Europe’s northern nations are working hard to ensure they can support each other in the event of any serious incidents.

And to wrap up this edition: The Scientific American magazine published an article on Tuesday the 16th about the discovery of bird fossils in Alaska that are changing everything we know about Arctic life millions of years ago.

The fossils have been dated to 73 million years ago, meaning birds have been living in the Arctic for almost half the time they’ve existed on Earth. Some of these birds lived their whole lives in Alaska, but some started to migrate south in winter, eventually evolving into birds like the Arctic Tern, which migrates from the northern to southern polar region every year in the longest migration on the planet.

The report gives an incredible vision of how life in the Arctic has evolved. To check it out, follow the link in the show notes.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

Don’t forget to hit the subscribe button! No need to worry, it’s free. Got ideas, comments? Send us an email at info@rorshok.com

Farvel