The sea ice in Antartica is in drastic decline, at its lowest in 40 years of satellite observations. Scientists are working to find out why.
Why Is Sea Ice Declining in Antarctica?
The cause of this shift is not yet clear. “Both the increase in Antarctic sea ice prior to 2014 and its rapid decrease since are of great interest to scientists, without a consensus point-of-view on the drivers,” said Claire Parkinson, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Parkinson is an expert in using satellite observations to map sea ice extent, and in 1983 she was part of the group that published the first atlas of Antarctic sea ice from satellite data.
Interestingly, the decline seen around Antarctica between 2014 and 2017 was greater than the decline in ice seen in the Arctic. However, it’s interesting to note that northern ice fields are also being affected by something interfering with their ice fields. Hudson’s Bay, for example, was ice-free early in 2023. Other regions in the northern hemisphere, such as the Siberian Sea, the Beaufort Sea , and the Kara Sea in Russia are also losing ice cover. The popular Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau, Alaska, is definitely smaller than normal, too. In early August, a nearby glacial lake outburst tied to melting ice flooded nearby areas. Authorities linked it to warming, which has helped shrink the glacier.
The Antarctic ice problem is definitely grabbing scientists’ attention with its most drastic decline in the entire 40-year satellite record. It, along withSo, what could be happening? Obviously, climate change looks like it could be a culprit. Warming temperatures associated with it affect the oceans, which could be forcing a shift toward lower ice accumulation around Antarctica.
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