The extent of Antarctic sea ice has reached its yearly minimum, tying for second as lowest on record.
Antarctic sea ice likely reached its minimum extent for the year on February 20, 2024, hitting a near-record low in the 46-year satellite record. The orange line shows the median ice edge for that date between 1981 and 2010. The map also shows a low concentration of sea ice in many areas. After months of summer, the sea ice fringing Antarctica has shriveled to its annual minimum. And for the third year running, scientists are shocked by just how much ice has gone missing.
676,000 square miles below the long-term average. This set a new record low for the winter maximum extent by a wide margin. And this time, the extent of missing ice was almost as large as Mexico. But Scambos cautions that the extent of sea ice in Antarctica has tended to fluctuate significantly in the recent past. Just 10 years ago, it was setting record highs.are likely implicated, with both natural variability and human-caused climate change in play. Because of this complexity, scientists can't rule out a rebound.Sea ice shields thick shelves of floating ice that extend from Antarctic glaciers, helping to slow their flow into the sea.
Floating ice shelves can buttress the glaciers behind them because they tend to become pinned by high spots on the sea floor. But research published this month revealed that thinning of ice shelves above these pinning points accelerated significantly between 1989 and 2022.
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