Uploaded August 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Antarctic sea ice is behaving very, very weirdly right now. In the same year we saw a record minimum extent, we’re now seeing a record slow freeze-up, leaving a widening gap between observations and what we expect for the time of year.
A lot of people have tried to put a number on exactly how rare the event we’re witnessing is, and come up with some insane numbers. So what’s going on? Is this really the kind of event we should only see once in 7.5 million years??
Big thanks to Zack Labe for talking to me for this video, you can check out his fantastic visualisations on his website here: zacklabe.com and follow him on socials @ZLabe.
#Antarctic #ClimateChange #cryosphere
Contents
00:00 Intro
00:22 What's going on?
01:04 A short history of Antarctic sea ice
01:55 Zack's take
03:50 We should be concerned
04:24 How rare is this?
06:03 Crunching the numbers: sea ice over 115 years
07:25 Is it climate change?
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If you like the videos I make and want to support me to make more like these, you can always sign up to my Patreon here: patreon.com/Dr_Gilbz.
Subscriptions help me make more (& better!) video content about climate and polar science, and keep these videos independent.
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References and resources
Gilbert & Holmes (2024) rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wea.4518
The Conversation (written by me and my colleague Caroline Holmes): theconversation.com/antarctica-is-missing-a-chunk-of-sea-ice-bigger-than-greenland-whats-going-on-210665
Financial Times (quoting myself and lots of fabulous colleagues): ft.com/content/98d5ed6e-de66-41e0-8771-1af34bc4334a
For a more technical discussion of the issues, check out @robbiemallett's video here: youtu.be/se_C2RlOsGc
Turner et al. (2017) nature.com/articles/547275a
Eayrs et al. (2021) nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00768-3
Fogt et al. dataset: nsidc.org/data/g10039/versions/1#anchor-1
Fogt et al. (2022) documentation paper pastglobalchanges.org/publications/pages-magazines/pages-magazine/129537
Antarctic sea ice is behaving very, very weirdly right now. In the same year we saw a record minimum extent, we’re now seeing a record slow freeze-up, leaving a widening gap between observations and what we expect for the time of year.
A lot of people have tried to put a number on exactly how rare the event we’re witnessing is, and come up with some insane numbers. So what’s going on? Is this really the kind of event we should only see once in 7.5 million years??
Big thanks to Zack Labe for talking to me for this video, you can check out his fantastic visualisations on his website here: zacklabe.com and follow him on socials @ZLabe.
#Antarctic #ClimateChange #cryosphere
Contents
00:00 Intro
00:22 What's going on?
01:04 A short history of Antarctic sea ice
01:55 Zack's take
03:50 We should be concerned
04:24 How rare is this?
06:03 Crunching the numbers: sea ice over 115 years
07:25 Is it climate change?
####################################################
If you like the videos I make and want to support me to make more like these, you can always sign up to my Patreon here: patreon.com/Dr_Gilbz.
Subscriptions help me make more (& better!) video content about climate and polar science, and keep these videos independent.
####################################################
References and resources
Gilbert & Holmes (2024) rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/wea.4518
The Conversation (written by me and my colleague Caroline Holmes): theconversation.com/antarctica-is-missing-a-chunk-of-sea-ice-bigger-than-greenland-whats-going-on-210665
Financial Times (quoting myself and lots of fabulous colleagues): ft.com/content/98d5ed6e-de66-41e0-8771-1af34bc4334a
For a more technical discussion of the issues, check out @robbiemallett's video here: youtu.be/se_C2RlOsGc
Turner et al. (2017) nature.com/articles/547275a
Eayrs et al. (2021) nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00768-3
Fogt et al. dataset: nsidc.org/data/g10039/versions/1#anchor-1
Fogt et al. (2022) documentation paper pastglobalchanges.org/publications/pages-magazines/pages-magazine/129537
