A 40-Y Record Reveals Gradual Antarctic Sea Ice Increases Followed by Decreases at Rates Far Exceeding the Rates Seen in the Arctic

Following over 3 decades of gradual but uneven increases in sea ice coverage, the yearly average Antarctic sea ice extents reached a record high of 12.8 by 10 (sup 6) square kilometers in 2014, followed by a decline so precipitous that they reached their lowest value in the 40-year 1979-2018 satellite multichannel passive-microwave record, 10.7 by 10 (sup 6) square kilometers, in 2017. In contrast, it took the Arctic sea ice cover a full 3 decades to register a loss that great in yearly average ice extents. Still, when considering the 40-year record as a whole, the Antarctic sea ice continues to have a positive overall trend in yearly average ice extents, although at 11,300 plus or minus 5,300 square kilometers per year, this trend is only 50 percent of the trend for 1979-2014, before the precipitous decline. Four of the 5 sectors into which the Antarctic sea ice cover is divided all also have 40-year positive trends that are well reduced from their 2014-2017 values. The one anomalous sector in this regard,the Bellingshausen/Amundsen Seas, has a 40-year negative trend, with the yearly average ice extents decreasing overall in the first 3 decades, reaching a minimum in 2007, and exhibiting an overall upward trend since 2007 (i.e., reflecting a reversal in the opposite direction from the other 4 sectors and the Antarctic sea ice cover as a whole).