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Antarctica — it’s never been this bad before.
That the climate is changing due to human activity is not new information to anyone. Record-breaking Antarctica is, for now, an anomaly in the statistics. Interesting, but uniquely unrelated to the environmental catastrophe unfolding.
For the first time since accurate satellite measurements have been made — i.e., in 43 years — the area of Antarctic sea ice has fallen to less than 2 million square kilometers, The Washington Post reports. That’s not the only alarming sign. Antarctic sea ice increases or decreases depending on the season. Typically for the region, its area reaches an annual maximum in late September. Meanwhile, in 2021, its area began shrinking as early as the beginning of the month.
According to the scientists responsible for these measurements, this is likely due to changing weather conditions and increasingly warmer winds. However, they point out that the data do not show a clear and direct correlation with climate change. The alarming record sounds threatening, but the scientists stress that variability in Antarctic ice accumulations is normal. What’s more, according to their data, from 1905 to 1979, the continent’s ice declined, but also from 1979 to 2015, its area increased year after year.
