At its largest expanse in 2923, sea ice covered less than 17 million square kilometres (6.6 million square miles) of the Antarctic. This area is 1 million square kilometres (almost 400,000 square miles), smaller than the previous record low set in 1986, according to the data released by the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. The number represents the smallest peak extent in almost 45 years of satellite records.
While the drivers of Antarctic sea ice loss are complicated and less well understood than Arctic sea ice loss, scientists believe climate change plays a role, and continuing shrinking of the ice could exacerbate warming’s effects, as less ice means less sunlight is reflected into space. Scientists who study Antarctica observed months ago that the ice was struggling to grow back from its February 2023 nadir, in a stark deviation from usual patterns. Read More
News Credit: Bloomberg
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