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Record sea temperatures and sea ice lows near Greenland in January followed Arctic air temperatures soaring up to 15°C above average in parts of the region, with experts warning of security implications.
US President Donald Trump said last month that the US wanted to seize control of mineral-rich Greenland for “national security reasons”. The threat comes as reduced ice cover opens the potential for more sea routes in the Arctic region, giving easier access to its critical minerals.
The latest data from the EU Earth observation agency Copernicus found that average Arctic sea ice extent in January was 5.5 per cent below normal, the third-lowest level recorded in 48 years of satellite observations.
John Methven, professor of atmospheric dynamics at Reading university, said the “unusually warm” Arctic basin temperatures in January, which contributed to the lower sea ice concentrations in parts, had geopolitical ramifications.
“As Arctic sea ice continues to shrink, shipping routes around the Arctic Ocean are staying ice-free for longer periods on both the Canadian and Russian sides,” he said.
This was “attracting more human activity in the region”, including military operations and commercial shipping. The melting ice also had “important security implications”, he said, pointing out that “thick sea ice has helped conceal submarines for decades”.
“As it thins and retreats, it becomes harder to hide naval vessels. This is changing the strategic landscape in the Arctic,” Methven said.
Copernicus said sea ice concentrations were much below average in Baffin Bay, between Baffin Island and the west coast of Greenland, the northern Barents Sea, including between Svalbard and Franz Josef Land, and the Labrador Sea between Greenland and Canada.
At the same time, parts of the north-eastern Atlantic including the Norwegian Sea — stretching from Norway to the tips of Iceland and Greenland — as well as the area towards Scotland, had recorded the warmest sea surface temperature on record for January at as much as 1C above average for the 1991-2020 reference period.
Julien Nicolas, senior climate scientist at the Copernicus climate intelligence team, noted that January showed a “sharp contrast” in temperature patterns globally.
Even as parts of North America, northern Europe and Siberia were much colder than average, the daily average temperature around Baffin Bay, the Barents Sea and Svalbard “frequently exceeded 15C above average”, he said.
Despite the lower-than-usual ice across parts of the Arctic, Copernicus said that Hudson Bay, off north-eastern Canada, was fully ice covered in January after a “much-delayed freeze-up in December”, and above-average ice cover developed in the Greenland Sea, the body of water to the east of Greenland.
François Gemenne, an expert on environmental geopolitics and climate change, and a professor at HEC Paris business school, said security implications for the region would include an increase in maritime transport, but believed it was unlikely that Greenland would be part of future major shipping routes.
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“In the long run, yes: hot temperatures will have a negative impact on security,” Gemenne said. “They will make the ice cap melt and thus make drilling for oil, gas, rare earth and critical minerals easier.”
“In the short term, unless the US is indeed planning to invade soon, it should have a limited impact. But it does make Greenland more accessible.”
Globally, last month was the fifth warmest January on record, as temperatures reached 1.47C above the pre-industrial average, even as parts of the world experienced a severe cold snap. Scientists believe extreme weather events are exacerbated by the atmospheric shifts related to global warming.
Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said: “January 2026 delivered a stark reminder that the climate system can sometimes simultaneously deliver very cold weather in one region, and extreme heat in another.”
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