A record swath of Arctic sea ice failed to freeze over the winter amid record-shattering heat. The National Snow and Ice Data Center said the sea ice’s maximum expanse this winter was the lowest since record keeping began nearly 40 years ago. This comes after NASA announced two new missions to explore the disappearing sea ice in the Arctic. NASA scientist Walt Meier described the problem.

Walt Meier: “You’ve probably heard that it’s been a record-breaking winter in the globe, but it’s been kind of turbo-charged in the Arctic—record warmth. We’ve seen temperatures 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. And then we’ve seen the Arctic sea ice, that grows in the cold winter, dark winter period in the Arctic, it’s been growing more slowly, because it’s so much warmer than normal there, and it’s covering less of an area than it normally does, and it’s one of the lowest that we’ve seen in our satellite record, going back almost 40 years now.”