No quick fix to reverse ‘astonishing’ Antarctic sea ice loss: Scientists
Al JazeeraThis year’s sea ice minimum is 20 percent lower than the average over the last 40 years, researchers say. There’s no quick fix to replacing this ice,” said Caroline Holmes, polar climate scientist at the British Antarctic Survey and one of the study’s co-authors. This year’s sea ice minimum is 20 percent lower than the average over the last 40 years, equivalent to a sea ice loss nearly 10 times the area of New Zealand, said Tim Naish, director of the Antarctic Research Centre at New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington, who was not a participant in the study. ‘Cascading influences’ The precise impact of climate change on Antarctica and the surrounding ocean has been uncertain and scientists have struggled to measure how much global warming is affecting the thickness of Antarctic ice. However, from phenomena such as the rapid decline in sea ice, it is “scientifically reasonable” to assume that extreme events are going to intensify as global temperatures rise, said Martin Siegert, a glaciologist at the University of Exeter and another co-author.