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| Sea ice extent around Antarctica on September 26. Yellow line shows median September sea ice extent from 1979 to 2000. Illustration Courtesy of: Jesse Allen, EO/NASA/NSIDC |
With opposition still out there on the
topic of global warming, there are still many questions to be answered and
research to be done. For example, a recent study was done showing that
Antarctic sea ice is actually increasing. So what does this mean? Is this
statistic in favor for those who are opposed to the severity of climate change?
How can the amount of sea ice in the Antarctic be increasing, along with the
temperatures around the world? To find out some of these answers, Daniel Stone
of National Geographic News talked to Eric Rignot, a NASA researcher and professor
of earth systems at UC Irvine.
When asked about the growing amount of
sea ice in the Antarctic, compared to the more often news of shrinking amounts
of ice, Rignot responded with the following statement:
“If the world was warming up uniformly,
you would expect the sea ice cover to decrease in the Antarctic, but it's not.
The reason for that is because the Antarctic is cooler than the rest of the
world. It's warming up as well but not as fast as other places.” Rignot went on
to say that the difference between the warming world and freezing cold
Antarctica is increasing. Along with this, the depletion of the ozone in the
Stratosphere in the Antarctic is causing cooler temperatures there.
Stone also asked Rignot if this is good
news for us, being that so much data has come out about the amount of stress
our climate system is under. Rignot stated that the discovery of the increased amount
of sea ice in Antarctica is consistent with their understanding of global
warming. Rignot also said that, “The Antarctic has not been warming up as fast
as the models thought. It's warming up, but slower. So it's all consistent with
a warming planet.”
With many skeptics still out there
questioning the legitimacy of global warming, it will be interesting to see if
this trend of growing sea ice in Antarctica continues, while temperatures
continue to rise, and sea ice continues to disappear in other parts of the
world.
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