The Antarctic and Arctic regions are polar opposites in more ways than one. These two regions have differences in the volume of ice, their climate, their seasonality, and much more. One important feature which separates the Arctic and Antarctic regions is their sea ice, and in particular how it changes over the year and its … Read more
There are many different kinds of ice. Land ice is ice grounded on land, and above sea level. If this ice melts, it contributes to sea level rise. Glaciers and ice sheets are the most common kind of land ice. The Antarctic Ice Sheet is surrounded by many other kinds of ice. Sea ice is … Read more
Guest post by Dr Jonathan Day, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading What is going on with the Antarctic sea ice? March 2017 was an interesting month for sea ice. Both northern and southern hemispheres experienced record breaking low extents for the time of year. The extent of Arctic sea ice reached the maximum area … Read more
Characteristics of Antarctic sea ice | Increasing Antarctic sea ice | Wind and movement | Changes to sea surface temperatures | Increased precipitation | Difficulty in measurement | Climate model simulations of sea-ice trends | Summary | References | Comments | Characteristics of Antarctic sea ice The Antarctic continent is surrounded by seasonal, floating sea … Read more
Ice shelves | Icebergs | Sea ice | Further reading | References | Comments | Ice shelves An ice shelf is a floating extension of land ice. The Antarctic continent is surrounded by ice shelves. They cover >1.561 million km2 (an area the size of Greenland)[1], fringing 75% of Antarctica’s coastline, covering 11% of its … Read more
This section of the website highlights how glaciers interact with climate, and how changing climate is changing glaciers around the world today. Globally, glaciers are receding and shrinking in response to atmospheric warming. The signal is remarkably consistent across different continents and mountain ranges. Glaciers are a critical water resource in many mountain regions of … Read more
Sea ice and ice shelves What is sea ice? Sea ice is frozen sea water; it perennially expands and contracts during each year’s winter and summer. Amongst the sea ice are icebergs calved from tidewater glaciers and ice shelves. Melting sea ice does not contribute directly to sea level rise (ice floats and displaces the … Read more
The Arctic’s sea ice extent reached an all-time low in September 2012, with the smallest recorded extent since satellite observations began. At 3.42 million square kilometres, it may still sound large, but this small extent of Arctic sea ice could have profound long-term consequences, and it follows a long trend of low sea ice conditions. … Read more
