Ocean heat is at record levels. As a result, global sea ice extent was only 16.23 million km² on February 9, 2022, the third lowest extent on record. What makes this even more worrying is that we're currently in the depth of a persistent La Niña. Antarctic sea ice at lowest extent on record since start satellite measurements Ocean heat is a huge threat for Antarctica at the moment. The image below shows that Antarctic sea ice extent was only 2.091 million km² on February 16, 2022, the lowest on record since the start of satellite measurements. Ocean heat is reducing the sea ice around Antarctica and is getting underneath floating sea ice. The Thwaites Glacier, which is on a retrograde slope, is especially vulnerable to collapse. The Thwaites Glacier contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by 65 cm (25.59 inches) if it were to completely collapse. The animation on the right, created with images from Climate Reanalyzer , shows th...