Has Antarctic Sea Ice Hit a Breaking Point?

Back-to-back sea ice extent record lows amidst an unforgiving one-two punch

The South Pole Station during an endless winter night of July 2024, in the midst of the second strongest heatwave to ever hit the continent ()

In the frozen depths of the Southern Hemisphere’s winter, a colossal giant awakens. It is during the months spanning between June and September that the Antarctic sea ice, unshackled by land’s constraints, stretches its frozen margins up to 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from the continent’s shores. At its total maximum extent, typically approaching mid-September, the ice spans an average of 18.71 million square kilometers (7.22 million square miles), roughly .

For decades, scientists watched with growing alarm as Arctic sea ice dwindled as the climate warmed. Yet Antarctica’s sea ice remained an enigma, defying trends and puzzling researchers.

Nothing could have prepared them for the abrupt transformation that happened in 2023.

In a sudden shift, Antarctic sea ice plummeted for six consecutive months. And a little more than a year ago, on September 10, 2023, at 16.96 million square kilometers (6.55 million square miles) — 1.75 million square kilometers below the 1981 to 2010 average or what equals missing a piece roughly the size of my country, Argentina, the 8th largest in the world.