On 12 September 2026, Arctic sea ice likely reached its annual minimum extent at 4.60 million square kilometers, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), which announced this on 23 September. This figure remains far from the 2012 record, which has stood since 14 summers. The NSIDC series, calculated on the average for September, gives 3.57 million square kilometers for 2012. No year between 2013 and 2025 reached as low. The second lowest, 2020, peaked at 4.00 million square kilometers. As for 2026, with its minimum at 4.60, it never threatened the record. The 2026 minimum remains 28 percent larger than the 2012 record established 14 years ago. Natural climatic variability has compensated for a significant portion of the melting caused by greenhouse gases. The last 20 years mark the lowest minimum extents ever recorded by satellite. Twenty years of pause, not a climate reprieve. On 6 August 2025, four researchers (England, Polvani, Screen, and Chan) published in Geophysical Research Letters a study with a clear title: the loss of Arctic sea ice over the last 20 years is minimal and compatible with internal climate variability. Their finding concerns the September extent, which shows no statistically significant decline since 2005. This pause, they say, resists changes in data sets, measurement methods, or seasons. How can the ice remain stable while greenhouse gases continue to accumulate? According to the authors, internal natural climate variability has compensated for a large part of the melting caused by human activity. Their simulations also show that such pauses are not rare, even in a warming world. The glaciologists at the NSIDC have not taken a position. They indicate that the September minimum shows no statistically significant decline over the last two decades and that scientists are still debating the reasons. A suspected cause is the continuous loss of multi-year ice, which is thicker, during the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s. Walt Meier, a researcher at the NSIDC, summarizes: "We've plateaued, but we're still low." A plateau at a very low level. The 2026 minimum is tied with 2025, 2008, and 2010 for the tenth place out of nearly 48 years of satellite observations. The ranking is misleading if read alone. The last 20 years, from 2007 to 2026, are the 20 lowest extents in the entire satellite record. Stable does not mean intact. Since 1979, the minimum has lost about 11.8 percent per decade compared to the 1981-2010 average, or approximately 73,200 square kilometers of ice per year. This is roughly the area of the Republic of Ireland that disappeared each year on average before the curve flattened. The trend of the minimum since 2007 is close to zero, but it has stabilized on a low plateau, not on the level of the 1980s. The 2026 figure remains provisional: a late storm could still compact the ice and reduce the extent. What the pause does not guarantee. No one says that the sea ice is rebuilding or that warming has stopped. The study authors estimate that the pause could "plausibly persist another five to 10 years," or 5 to 10 more years. After this period, the risk of a faster than average decline would increase. The expression "no longer declining sharply" requires caution. It translates the absence of a statistically significant decline, a formulation from the study, and not an observed halt in melting. On a series as variable from year to year, twenty summers without a clear trend do not prove that the underlying mechanism has changed. Even the record figure depends on the way it is measured. The September average for 2012 is 3.57 million square kilometers, but the minimum for a single day gives a different value, hence the reference to the year rather than a single number. The same ambiguity affects the rankings. With statistical ties, 13 minimums slip into the top 10, and the European index OSI SAF places the minimum of 12 September at 14th place.