Fossil Fuel Emissions Named as Key Driver of Vanishing Antarctic Sea Ice

Geophysical Research Letters, 20 May 2024

Antarctic sea ice reached historically low levels in 2023, with over 2 million square kilometers less ice than usual during winter. This study is one of the first to directly link fossil fuel emissions with that sharp decline in Antarctic sea ice. In terms of probability, the record-breaking low in 2023 would have only occurred once every 2,000 years if climate change were not involved; the fact that it happened at all indicates human emissions are influencing recent sea ice behavior. (For reference: scientists generally classify anything occurring less than once every 100 years as “exceedingly rare”.) Authors anticipate that Antarctic sea ice will struggle – and likely prove unable – to recover all the ice lost from these recent extreme events over at least the next two decades, which could signal a lasting regime shift in the Southern Ocean. High emissions, including today’s current trajectory, will make such record-breaking sea ice loss events four times more likely to occur in future; whereas rapid emissions reductions may eventually slow this trend towards extreme sea ice loss by the end of this century. This might also help stabilize adjoining ice shelves, and thus losses from the ice sheet itself.

Full paper: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL109265
Plain-language briefing: https://www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/record-low-antarctic-sea-ice-extremely-unlikely-without-climate-change/