A preliminary US analysis of satellite data showed on Monday that the surface area of sea ice around Antarctica is likely to be at a record low this winter, when it was at its maximum size.
As the Southern Hemisphere transitions to spring, the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said in a statement that Antarctic sea ice this year reached a maximum size of just 16.96 million square kilometers (6.55 million square miles) on Sept. 10. Had reached. ,
The ice pack typically reaches its largest size during the cold winter months, so the September 10 reading is likely to be this year’s highest reading.
“This is the lowest sea ice extent by a wide margin in the 1979 to 2023 sea ice record,” said NSIDC, a government-backed program at the University of Colorado at Boulder.