Whats happening with sea ice around Antarctica?
Just to clarify, not only is the Arctic sea ice extent decreasing, but just as critical, the mean thickness of the Arctic sea ice pack also has precipitously decreased. In fact, although not quite an ice extent minimum record year, by February, this year was already a minimum record year for the amount of thick multiyear ice present in the pack. We suspect that the increasing presence of icebergs broken off from ice shelves and glaciers within the Antarctic sea ice pack is a major contributor to a temporary but increasing trend in the Antarctic sea ice extent. Since the rapid disappearance of the Antarctic ice shelves and glaciers itself is seen as a response to global warming, the slight increase in sea ice extent that we are observing can be paradoxically linked to the same warming trend.
