Just about every calendar month , it seems , we geta reporton the dismal stateof Arctic sea ice . By contrast , the shiny livid stuff surrounding the Antarctic continent has beenremarkably stablein a warming world . This year , however , the sea ice at our planet ’s south terminal is crashing , and scientists do n’t make out why .
It ’s late summer in Antarctica , the time when ocean ice always hits its one-year lower limit . This twelvemonth , that minimum marks a dramatic Modern criminal record — the small ocean ice extent since continuous planet insurance coverage began in 1979 , by a long shot . Sea ice achieve an estimated 2.188 million straight kilometers on March 1st , according to near real - timedataprovided by the National Snow and Ice Data Center . The former record low , of 2.296 million substantial kilometers , was go down on February 28th , 1997 . The difference , of 0.12 million substantial kilometers , encompasses an area larger than the state of Maine .
“ It is very strange , ” Cecilia Bitz , a ocean Methedrine researcher at the University of Washington , told Gizmodo . She noted that the mystery traces back to September 2016 , when , toward the closing of the southerly hemisphere ’s wintertime , Antarctic sea ice growth stall out unexpectedly . “ It procrastinate out during typical ontogeny time of year , and then it just never got back on schedule , ” Bitz say . “ October losses were very high , and then , [ by ] early November , it was set new records . ”
It ’s particularly strange behavior in light of the farseeing - condition trend for Antarctica : lowly but significant ocean ice growth . In fact , Antarctic sea icereached a record maximumin October 2014 . But while Antarctic ocean ice growth has long been a source of fodder for global heating skeptics , expert say it address more to the complexity within the Earth ’s climate system , among other gene .
For instance , astudypublished last year in Remote Sensing of Environment postulated that winds controlled by Antarctic continental topography , and currents controlled by the depth of the Southern Ocean , help keep Antarctic sea ice relatively stable , specially when compared with the Arctic . Anotherstudy , published in 2016 in Nature Geoscience , argued that Antarctic sea ice expansion between 2000 and 2014 was driven by decadal clime variability in the tropic Pacific . Still other factors , like the ozone maw over Antarctica , can influence regional winds , heat transport , and sea ice cover , Bitz say .
In short : Antarctic sea ice is really effin ’ complicated . And scientists do n’t expect clear - cut answers to this class ’s icy mystery anytime soon . While it might be tempting to cry “ mood modification ” in reception to the shrinking ice , that ’s not inevitably the casing .
“ in person the Antarctic sea ice is so variable from year to year , it ’s heavy to draw off any fast end from this record Sir David Alexander Cecil Low , ” Julienne Stroeve , ocean ice research worker at the National Snow and Ice Data Center , told Gizmodo . “ And summer is the most variable of all months in the Antarctic , so again just because this year is so low it does n’t intend it ’s touch to climate change . ”
Son Nghiem , senior research scientist at NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and generator of that Remote Sensing of Environment newspaper , agreed . “ We should not read too much in to this one data point by itself in this austral summer as one point in sentence is not sufficient regarding the climatic time exfoliation of multiple decade , ” he severalize Gizmodo in an email . Nghiem tot that the area get the most ice loss this summer — the Bellingshausen Sea western United States of the Antarctic Peninsula — has , in fact , been losing sea internal-combustion engine for the past several decennium , bucking the continent - extensive trend . In that light , this year is perhaps not so surprising .
Bitz wants more data on late sea surface temperatures and current of air conditions before she draws conclusions about what ’s fueling the recent record depression . ( Unlike sea ice covering data , which we pick up in near real time via satellites , data from ocean buoy and weather condition Stations of the Cross is typically delayed several week to several months . ) But , she add , this year “ is logical ” with our expectations for Antarctic sea ice over the long - term .
“ We see in all of our foresightful - term projections , the Southern Ocean will warm up , the ocean ice will retreat , ” Bitz said . “ I think [ this year is ] likely come to . ”
AntarcticaClimateearth scienceGlaciologyScience
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