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Antarctica is in crisis and we are scrambling to understand its future

The last two years have seen unprecedented falls in the levels of sea ice around Antarctica, which serves as a protective wall for the continent’s huge ice sheets. Researchers are now racing to understand the global impact of what could happen next

By James Woodford, 2 December 2024

If all our fear and uncertainty over climate change could be distilled into a single statistic, then arguably it was delivered to an emergency summit on the future of the Antarctic last month.

Nerilie Abram at the Australian National University, Canberra, opened her presentation with a slide headlined “Antarctic sea ice has declined precipitously since 2014, and in July 2023 exceeded a minus 7 sigma event”.

Antarctica is in crisis and we are scrambling to understand its future.
The last two years have seen unprecedented falls in the levels of sea ice
around Antarctica, which serves as a protective wall for the continent’s
huge ice sheets. Researchers are now racing to understand the global impact
of what could happen next.

If all our fear and uncertainty over climate
change could be distilled into a single statistic, then arguably it was
delivered to an emergency summit on the future of the Antarctic last month.
Nerilie Abram at the Australian National University, Canberra, opened her
presentation with a slide headlined “Antarctic sea ice has declined
precipitously since 2014, and in July 2023 exceeded a minus 7 sigma
event”.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre, the 7
sigma event was the lowest maximum since records began in 1979. This year
was the second lowest, with Antarctic sea ice “stalling out” at a
maximum extent of 17.16 million square kilometres, or just 200,000 square
kilometres more than last year. Remarkably, that is 1.55 million square
kilometres below the expected average extent.

In other words, in the past
two years an area of ice nearly 6.5 times the size of the UK has
disappeared. Another way to imagine it is that the ring of sea ice that
forms every winter around the entire Antarctic continent has contracted by
an average of 120 kilometres, says Abram.

 New Scientist 2nd Dec 2024
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2458211-antarctica-is-in-crisis-and-we-are-scrambling-to-understand-its-future/

December 12, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized