Sea-Ice Status Updates for both Poles (Arctic Ocean & Antarctic Ocean) as we reach the March Equinox @PaulHBeckwith

Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

Sea-Ice Status Updates for both Poles (Arctic Ocean & Antarctic Ocean) as we reach the March Equinox

As we approach the March Equinox (Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 10:46 a.m.) Eastern Time we approach the yearly maximum in Arctic Sea Ice extent, and we have just past the yearly minimum in Antarctic Sea Ice Extent.

I chat about what is happening, and about the increasing sea surface salinity (SSS) around Antarctica since the abrupt tipping point change in sea ice extent down under.

Enjoy. Live long and prosper...

Please donate to PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and videos connecting the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem.

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. As well as my website, and YouTube, you can find me on Patreon, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit (multiple climate channels within), Quora, TikTok, Discord, Mastodon, Twitch, Vimeo, Bluesky, TruthSocial, Threads, Substack, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc...

References and Links

Mercator Ocean International: Sea Ice Bulletin March 2026
https://www.mercator-ocean.eu/bulletin/sea-ice-bulletin-march-2026/

Alaska and Arctic Climate Newsletter:
Arctic Mid-March 2026 Sea Ice Update: Overall low extent but big regional differences
Rick Thoman on Mar 13, 2026
alaskaclimate.substack.com/p/arctic-mid-march-2026-sea-ice-update

National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC): a part of CIRES at the University of Boulder Colorado
- Advancing knowledge of Earth's frozen regions
nsidc.org/home

NSIDC Sea Ice Today - Analyses and daily images of sea ice conditions
nsidc.org/sea-ice-today

NSIDC Charctic Interactive Sea Ice Graph: A Sea Ice Today Tool
nsidc.org/sea-ice-today/sea-ice-tools/charctic-interactive-sea-ice-graph

Spring Equinox in Northern Hemisphere; (March Equinox): Fall Equinox in Southern Hemisphere
Google search this

Wikipedia Page: March Equinox (an equinox has equal hours of day and night, 12 hours each, across the planet, irregardless of latitude)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_equinox

Portal to the Heritage of Astronomy: Category of Astronomical Heritage: tangible immovable
Chankillo, Peru
Site known as Thirteen Towers
web.astronomicalheritage.net/show-entity?identity=51&idsubentity=1#:~:text=The%20Thirteen%20Towers%20are%20a,viewed%20from%20the%20observing%20points.

Thirteen Towers Astronomical Site, 4500 years old
researchgate.net/figure/The-Thirteen-Towers-as-viewed-from-A-the-western-observing-point-and-B-the-revised_fig7_259411481

World Monuments Site: Chankillo Arcaeo-astronomical complex
wmf.org/projects/chankillo-archaeoastronomical-complex

Query: Tell me what is happening with Arctic sea ice?
perplexity.ai/search/tell-me-what-is-happening-with-xD25D42qSxeOs.pNTtXCDw

Query: Tell me what is happening with Antarctica sea ice?
perplexity.ai/search/tell-me-what-is-happening-with-S_KMrGWxQu.yUUVQ1PKg4g

Article in the Conversation:
‘Completely unexpected’: Antarctic sea ice may be in terminal decline due to rising Southern Ocean salinity
Published: June 30, 2025 3.03pm EDT
theconversation.com/completely-unexpected-antarctic-sea-ice-may-be-in-terminal-decline-due-to-rising-southern-ocean-salinity-259743

Peer-reviewed scientific paper in PNAS journal:
Rising surface salinity and declining sea ice: A new Southern Ocean state revealed by satellites
Direct link to open-source pdf: pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.2500440122

Abstract
For decades, the surface of the polar Southern Ocean (south of 50°S) has been
freshening—an expected response to a warming climate. This freshening enhanced
upper-ocean stratification, reducing the upward transport of subsurface heat and
possibly contributing to sea ice expansion. It also limited the formation of open-ocean
polynyas. Using satellite observations, we reveal a marked increase in surface salinity across the circumpolar Southern Ocean since 2015. This shift has weakened
upper-ocean stratification, coinciding with a dramatic decline in Antarctic sea ice
coverage. Additionally, rising salinity facilitated the reemergence of the Maud Rise
polynya in the Weddell Sea, a phenomenon last observed in the mid-1970s. Crucially,
we demonstrate that satellites can now monitor these changes in real time, providing
essential evidence of the Southern Ocean’s potential transition toward persistently
reduced sea ice coverage.

Please donate to PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and videos connecting the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem.

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. As well as my website, and YouTube, you can find me on Patreon, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit (multiple climate channels within), Quora, TikTok, Discord, Mastodon, Twitch, Vimeo, Bluesky, TruthSocial, Threads, Substack, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc...

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$Sahara Desert Greening in AHPs (African Humid Periods) in the Paleorecords - what is going on today? Sahara Desert Greening in AHPs (African Humid Periods) in the Paleorecords - what is going on today? I chat about periods in the paleorecords when the Sahara was green. Although we are seeing some greening in parts of the Sahara today from extreme precipitation events and planting of The Great Green Wall, we are not seeing an overall shift but are still getting an overall increase in desert area. Please donate to http://PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and videos connecting the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem. References Map of vegetation zones (ecozones: ecoregions) across the planet (great map)! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_ecoregions#/media/File:Vegetation.png Wikipedia list of global ecoregions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_ecoregions Peer-reviewed paper in scientific journal Climates of the Past: Pattern scaling of simulated vegetation change in northern Africa during glacial cycles https://cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/773/2025/cp-21-773-2025.pdf Abstract. Over the last hundreds of millennia, natural rhythms in Earth’s astronomical motions triggered largescale climate changes and led periodically to humid conditions in much of northern Africa. Known as African Humid Periods (AHPs), such times sustained vast river networks, vegetation, wildlife, and prehistoric settlements. The mechanisms, extent, and timing of the changes remain poorly constrained. Although AHPs along glacial cycles are recognizable in marine sediment records, the related land cover changes are difficult to reconstruct due to the scarcity of proxy data over the continent. Moreover, most available information covers only the latest AHP during the Holocene. Here we use a comprehensive Earth system model to look at additional, much earlier, possible cases of AHPs. We simulate the full last glacial cycle, aiming to reproduce the last four AHPs as seen in available proxies. The simulated AHPs seem in broad agreement with geological records, especially in terms of timing and relative strength. We focus on the simulated vegetation coverage in northern Africa, and we detect a dominant change pattern that seems to scale linearly with known climate forcing variables. We use such scaling to approximate northern African vegetation fractions over the last eight glacial cycles. Although the simple linear estimation is based on a single mode of vegetation variability (that explains about 70 % of the variance), it helps to discuss some broad-scale spatial features that had only been considered for the Holocene AHP. Extending the climate simulation several millennia into the future reveals that such (paleo-based) pattern scaling breaks when greenhouse gases (GHGs) become a stronger climate change driver. Query: Tell me about the greening of the Sahara Desert: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/tell-me-about-the-greening-of-juE.YzTeS0qpG6rSk.D.sw Peer-reviewed scientific paper in journal Climate Past Northward Shifts of the Sahara Desert in Response to Twenty-First-Century Climate Change https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/36/10/JCLI-D-22-0169.1.xml SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Given that sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change, the Sahara’s expansion would bring unexpected health risks to billions of people. It is thus vital to understand its robust response to global warming. However, previous studies are merely focused on using a simple precipitation threshold as the definition criterion to estimate the varying size of the Sahara Desert. In addition, significant uncertainty in precipitation projections also limits relevant investigations of the Sahara’s future responses. Here, by developing an ensemble Bayesian discriminant analysis approach, we could provide an objective basis for desert identification under large inter-model uncertainty. Further, we find significant northward shifts of both the Sahara and the Sahel, which may induce higher risks of drought over the northwest of North Africa. Paper: Analysis of the spatial-temporal patterns of vegetation, precipitation, land surface temperature, and soil moisture across the Sahara-Sahel Great Green Wall region using remote sensing data. https://journals.gmu.edu/jssr/article/view/4223 Scientific Report: Expansion of the Sahara Desert and shrinking of frozen land of the Arctic https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7057959/pdf/41598_2020_Article_61085.pdf Please donate to http://PaulBeckwith.net to support my research and videos connecting the dots on abrupt climate system mayhem. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. As well as my website, and YouTube, you can find me on Patreon, Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit (multiple climate channels within), Quora, TikTok, Discord, Mastodon, Twitch, Vimeo, Bluesky, TruthSocial, Threads, Substack, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc...$

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