Last year Pope Leo spoke before a slowly melting chunk of glacial ice in Vatican City in his first address on climate change.  The pontiff addressed a crowd of roughly 1,000 attendees and called on people all over the world to demand action on climate from their governments. Last October my post presented evidence the Arctic was already heeding his call, growing by leaps and bounds. /sarc.  Now the ice is again abundant in October 2026.

The graph below shows October daily ice extents for 2026 compared to 20 year averages, and some years of note. The first 18 days showed large ice surpluses, then slowed to match average, before ending in some deficit.  As a result the Monthly October average surpassed average. Note that concerns over the September Arctic minimum are eased every year with the October extents growing on average from 5.0M km2 to 8.4M km2

Why is this important?  All the claims of global climate emergency depend on dangerously higher temperatures, lower sea ice, and rising sea levels.  The lack of additional warming prior to 2023-24 El Nino, which after receding is warming slightly warming, as documented in a post August 2026 El Nino Drives Global UAH Warming.

Also, a longer term perspective is informative:

Illustration by Eleanor Lutz shows Earth’s seasonal climate changes. If played in full screen, the four corners present views from top, bottom and sides. It is a visual representation of scientific datasets measuring ice and snow extents.