The Antarctic's Weakening Resilience to Rising Temperatures

As has been well documented, Arctic sea ice has steadily declined in extent and thickness since the 1980s. Sea ice in the Southern Hemisphere, however, has tended to behave differently to its Northern counterpart. As covered in the newly published State of the Oceans 2024 report, a collaboration between Statista and the German Ocean Foundation: "Despite the rise in global sea surface temperature, the Antarctic was showing to be more resilient to such changes. Nonetheless, this pattern seems to have reached a tipping point."

As illustrated in this infographic, sea ice cover extent in Antarctica reported record low levels in 2023. Particularly in winter, when the sea ice area is at its highest, ice cover drifted drastically away from the average. While a strong El Niño phenomenon in 2023 may have caused the abnormal reaction, "researchers are already arguing if this is a temporary effect or if we are at the beginning of a new regime for the Southern ice sheet."

Find out more by downloading the free State of the Oceans 2024 report.