The steady and dramatic decline in the sea ice cover of the
Arctic Ocean over the last three decades has become a focus of media and public
attention. At the opposite end of the Earth, however, something more complex is
happening.
A new NASA study shows that from 1978 to 2010 the total
extent of sea ice surrounding Antarctica in the Southern Ocean grew by roughly
6,600 square miles every year, an area larger than the state of Connecticut.
And previous research by the same authors indicates that this rate of increase
has recently accelerated, up from an average rate of almost 4,300 square miles
per year from 1978 to 2006.