Antarctica’s west coast is missing an area of winter sea ice the size of France as a recent heatwave drove temperatures some 20 Celsius above average in the region.
As The Guardian reports, satellite observations showed the Bellingshausen Sea on the west side of the Antarctic peninsula was almost completely ice free.
It is currently winter in Antarctica, and this area would usually be covered by ice in June.
Scientists said the region was missing about 650,000 sq kilometres (250,000 sq miles) of sea ice, compared with the average between 1991 and 2020.
This is an area about the size of France and almost ten times the size of Tasmania.
“I’m concerned. It’s depressing,” the newspaper quotes Dr Will Hobbs, an Antarctic sea ice expert at the University of Tasmania with the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership, as saying.
This was the third time in four years that sea ice had been very low in the region, he noted.
“I don’t think we will see sea ice there any more. It’s done,” he said.
He said the loss of sea ice was probably linked to changes in the ocean, and scientists were trying to understand if global heating was a factor.
The region is important for krill, which would usually be hiding from predators under the ice in winter.
Read The Guardian here
