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Earlier this year, on February 25, Antarctic sea ice extent was at an all-time record low of 1.924 million km², as the above image shows. Throughout the year, Antarctic sea ice extent has been low. On December 14, 2022, Antarctic sea ice was merely 9.864 million km² in extent. Only in 2016 was Antarctic sea ice extent lower at that time of year, and - importantly - 2016 was a strong El Niño year. The NOAA image on the right indicates that, while we're still in the depths of a persistent La Niña, the next El Niño looks set to strike soon. Meanwhile, ocean heat content keeps rising due to high levels of greenhouse gases, as illustrated by the image on the right.  Rising ocean heat causes sea ice to melt from below, resulting in less sea ice, which in turn means that less sunlight gets reflected back into space and more sunlight gets absorbed as heat in the ocean, making it a self-reinforcing feedback loop that further speeds up sea ice loss.  The currently very rapid decline...

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...