Arctic sea ice has shrunk to the lowest recorded level in winter since satellite records began in 1979.
At its winter peak on February 25, the ice covered a maximum area of 14.54 million sq km, 130,000 sq km less than the previous lowest in 2011 and 1.1 million sq km below the 1981-2010 average, according to the US-based National Snow and Ice Data Centre.
An unusually warm February in parts of Alaska and Russia contributed to the record low.
Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics, said: “This is further evidence that global warming and its impacts have not stopped. The gradual disappearance of ice is having profound consequences for people, animals