The Declining Trend of Arctic Sea‐Ice Extent (1979–2025): Segmented by Abrupt Change Points

Arctic sea‐ice extent (SIE), a high‐accuracy observable, is a key indicator for assessing sea‐ice state and its physical evolution. Extreme SIE losses thus often spark debates over potential Arctic tipping behavior and nonlinear threshold responses. Employing Arctic SIE from 1979 to 2025, this study investigated the long‐term decline, anomalous years, abrupt changes, and partial recovery phases. We identified three pivotal extreme years (2012, 2020, and 2025) within the declining trend of Arctic SIE. They are characterized by persistent record lows, a near‐record annual minimum, and an unprecedented frequency of daily record lows, respectively. The monthly SIE series was decomposed into trend, seasonal, and remainder components, and we subsequently detected 2001, 2007, 2012, and 2020 as abrupt change points (ACPs) in the trend. However, each ACP is followed by a partial SIE recovery. These findings indicate that ACPs represent significant annual‐scale disturbances in SIE variability.