Antarctica is Cooling/Gaining Ice

According to the Gravity satellite measurements (GRACE) Antarctica is losing ice mass. However it is gaining ice extent.

Global warming is evaporating more moisture into the atmosphere which causes more rain. More rain is freshening the surface water enabling more sea surface ice to form. This in turn enables the sea ice extent to increase.

• https://psc.apl.washington.edu/zhang/Pubs/Zhang_Antarctic_20-11-2515.pdf

Some scientists predicted this phenomena decades ago saying that as the Earth warms we will see an increase in the Antarctic sea ice extent and a decrease in the Arctic sea ice extent.

Additional changes in the stratospheric ozone layer are also considered to be a factor:

• https://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/302/5643/273
• https://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/296/5569/895
• https://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037524.shtml

And there is evidence that the rate of change is increasing.

• https://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009GL037524.shtml

Antarctic Measurements

Antarctic Ice Mass Loss [manual update]

Source: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/20100108_Is_Antarctica_Melting.html

Antarctic Ice Extent Increase [updates annually]

Source: https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

Antarctic Ice Extent (updates daily)

Source: https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

Sea Ice Concentration Anomalies [updates monthly]

Source: https://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

Links

*The movies provided below require a Java enabled Web browser

• *Infrared Composite Movie showing the last 24 hours worth of images
• *Water Vapor Composite Movie showing the last 24 hours worth of images
• *Latest mid-resolution (10 kilometer) infrared psuedo-color Antarctic composite animation.