By July 2026, Canada’s 2,200-square-mile Arctic ice cap had lost most of its snow cover, with snow disappearing earlier than in recent years

For most of the year, the Barnes Ice Cap on Canada's Baffin Island is buried beneath snow, with its ancient ice largely hidden from view. But in the summer of 2026, that familiar Arctic landscape changed unusually quickly. By mid-July, satellite images showed the ice cap largely stripped of its snow, exposing darker ice, meltwater ponds and an intricate network of channels. The change was striking not only because the snow had disappeared, but because it happened unusually early, leaving much of the ice surface exposed with weeks left in the melt season.

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