Sea ice around Antarctica shrinks to record low, preliminary US data show

Sea ice around Antarctica has shrunk to the smallest annual extent on record after years of resisting a trend of man-made global warming, preliminary US satellite data showed on Tuesday.

Ice floating around the frozen continent usually melts to its smallest for the year around the end of February, the southern hemisphere summer, before expanding again as the autumn chill sets in.

This year, sea ice extent contracted to 2.287 million square kilometres on February 13, according to daily data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

That extent is a fraction smaller than a previous low of 2.290 million sq kms recorded on February 27, 1997, in satellite records dating back to 1979.

Mark Serreze, director of the NSIDC, said he would wait for a few days’ more measurements to confirm the record low.

“But unless something funny happens, we’re looking at a record minimum in Antarctica. Some people say it’s already happened,” he said. “We tend to be conservative by looking at five-day running averages.”