In the waters around the warming continent, the icy grip of winter seems stronger than ever. We explore the mystery of the Southern Ocean sea ice
The world is set to defrost. All over the planet glaciers are retreating, while tundra thaws. The ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica are looking fragile, and the Arctic's once-vast raft of sea ice is shrinking at an alarming pace. And down south, in the seas around Antarctica, the sea ice... well... er... seems to be growing.
In the few decades we have had satellites keeping watch, the area of the Southern Ocean covered by sea ice in winter has grown bigger, hitting record levels in recent years. The increase is small, but it is surprising – and something of a mystery. "The Arctic is doing exactly what we would expect," says Paul Holland of the British Antarctic Survey. "The Antarctic is not."
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