On 12 Dec, the 346th day of the year 2025, we are rapidly approaching the Solstice when winter officially begins. As you would expect, there’s a lot of sea ice in the Arctic basin, but the real story is buried in the figures. The 10 lowest sea ice extent Day 346s in the satellite record are (in ascending order). In the last decade day 346 has lost a million square kilometers

2025 10.702 x 10^6 km^2
2016 10.892
2024 10.924
2020 11.067
2023 11.376
2017 11.515
2018 11.549
2019 11.616
2021 11.652
2022 11.657
2015 11.711

On this day, the ice cover has been dropping steadily for the last decade. Yes, the data is a bit noisy, but the lowest 10 ice day 346s have all been in the last 10 years.