Now a study conducted by
Chinese University Sun Yatsen
and from
Guangdong Laboratory for Southern Hemisphere Marine Science and Engineering
published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, has identified some causes of the anomaly related to metrological phenomena of La Niña and the Antarctic Oscillation.
while al
North Pole
As sea ice extent decreases rapidly due to global warming, sea ice in Antarctica has experienced a modest upward trend since the late 1970s, but it stopped in 2017 and is now reappearing in just 5 years.
The causes of this variability are complicated, but the puzzle was partially solved by Wang’s group. Using data from 1979 to 2022 collected by the US National Data Center for Snow and Ice, the researchers analyzed the
balance of sea ice
, i.e. the amounts lost and gained. They discovered that in summer the heat transport to the South Pole and the greater heat absorption by the icefree water dominate the processes, which accelerates melting.
In the spring, however, the northward drift of the ice in the Amundsen Sea also comes into play, pushing it to lower latitudes and thus towards higher temperatures. In addition, the study authors noted that the new minimum record occurred in conjunction with two other events: the
Nina
one of the strongest meteorological phenomena on the planet and cold counterpart of El Niño, e.g
the Antarctic swing
a belt of strong westerly winds surrounding Antarctica, moving north or south.
These phenomena combine to intensify the lowpressure center off the coast of West Antarctica, where climatic variability becomes extreme: this is the epicenter of most anomalies in seaice extent. The report therefore left the door open to new questions: “If the
tropical zone
it has such an impact Wang commented it’s this area that studies need to focus on now”.