Sea ice cover in the Antarctic is now at its highest level since records began.
Satellite images show 7.7 million square miles (20 million sq km) of ice growing around the continent. But rather than proving global warming to be untrue, scientists claim that this growth may in fact be caused by it. The ice has broken records on about 150 days this year, showing that it is gaining much greater coverage than in previous years.
The area of sea ice seen from space is nearly double the size of the Antarctic continent and about three times the size of Australia. Dr Guy Williams, a sea ice specialist at University of Tasmania said that the new records add to an “exciting” puzzle for climate scientists. Each record-breaking year is different due to variations in seasonal weather— “it’s those differences that will tell us something,” he said.
The growth of sea ice isn’t even, however. The region west of the Antarctic Peninsula, for instance, shows a large decline in sea ice. On the contrary, in areas such as the Ross Sea, sea ice is increasing.
According to scientists, there are two main theories to explain the changes in Antarctic sea ice. The first is that westerly winds, which flow around Antarctica, are speeding up and moving south. This is thought to be linked to an increase in greenhouse gases and an increase in sea ice. The second theory is that sea ice forms easier due to the colder and fresher melt water from Antarctica's melting glaciers（冰山）and ice sheets.
“This is an area covered by sea ice which we’ve never seen from space before,” Jan Lieser from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre told Daily Mail. “Thirty-five years ago the first satellites went up which were reliably（确切地） telling us what area of sea ice was covered and we've never seen that before, that much area.”
Researchers are now using underwater robots to measure the thickness of Antarctic sea ice with much greater accuracy over bigger areas.
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