It may be difficult to believe for people who live on the East Coast of North America, where this past winter was unusually harsh, however the maximum winter coverage of sea ice has hit its lowest level on record according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

To be clear: Arctic sea ice expands during the cold months and declines during the cold ones. The maximum level of ice usually occurs during February or March. This fall, a second survey will be released showing the minimum level from the summer.

NSIDC researchers say that it is still possible that the ice could expand further, and a full report will be released in April. Currently however, the ice appears to have reached its maximum level and has begun to retreat.

“Over the first two weeks of March, temperatures throughout the eastern Arctic at the 925 hPa level (approximately 3,000 feet altitude) were several degrees Celsius above average, with temperatures as much as 8 to 10 degrees Celsius (14 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit) above average in the Barents Sea between Svalbard and Franz Josef Land. While the seven-day weather forecasts show continued warmer-than-average conditions over the eastern Arctic, colder-than-average conditions are expected over the Bering Sea and may still lead to some new ice formation,” said a statement from the NSIDC.

This year’s reported ice coverage is seven percent below the 30 year average and one percent below the previous record low set in 2011. On average, sea ice has been retreating at a rate of five percent per decade.

“On February 25, 2015 Arctic sea ice likely reached its maximum extent for the year, at 14.54 million square kilometers (5.61 million square miles). This year’s maximum ice extent was the lowest in the satellite record, with below-average ice conditions everywhere except in the Labrador Sea and Davis Strait,” said the NSIDC.

The reduction in sea ice of 50,000 square miles is “the equivalent of losing an extra patch of ice the size of Texas and California combined,” according to Andrew Freedman of Mashable.

Melting sea ice is a bad sign in terms of climate change. It is also bad news for local wildlife which has evolved to depend on the sea ice for things like hunting and breeding. It may also be bad news for wildlife in a less direct way. As the sea ice thins, the arctics reserves of oil and gas are easier to get at and new shipping lanes open. These things, where they have occurred, have generally not been good for wildlife in the region. In the arctic it would be worse because of the dependence of local wildlife on the ice.

“A less than 1m sq km summer would mean that the north pole would be open water, that a broad seaway would exist north of Siberia and that major ecosystems and fauna would be severely impacted. My own guess is that we will reach this level around 2030,” NSIDC’s senior research scientist Ted Scambos told the Guardian.

A melting arctic does not necessarily, however, mean rising sea levels. The ice that expands and retracts in the arctic is already in the water and therefore doesn’t add considerably to see levels. It is primarily ice on land, in places like Greenland and Antarctica that contribute to significant increases in sea level.