100-Year-Old Data Proves Antarctic Sea Ice Barely Changed

Data from the log books of the "Heroes of the Antarctic Exploration" may provide evidence that the area of sea ice surrounding Antarctica in the far south has experienced very little changes in size in a century. For hundreds of years, scientists have been finding out clues on the behavior of this gigantic frigid continent.

The Heroes of the Antarctic Exploration are explorers from the late 1800s to early 1900s when expeditions from all over the world have been funded to record and discover what is in the vastness of the South Pole. One such important data scientists have collected came from a logbook from Captain Scott whose tragic fate ended up when their ship sank and got trapped in ice in 1915. Though most of their explorations have been considered as tragedies, their ice observations are considered as very crucial data in the study of the sea ice found in the Antarctic.

There had been on-going reports and controversies that sea ice has been shrinking rapidly every year. For clearer information, the Arctic sea ice up in the far north has been continuously decreasing in size for the past few decades. The Antarctic sea ice down in the far south has been erratically behaving but has maintained its considerable size, according to scientists. Studies have also shown that the Antarctic sea ice is much less susceptible to the effects of climate change than the North Pole.

Statistically, the size of the Antarctic sea ice has been reduced by around 14 percent in the past 100 years. However, satellite images have shown the present-day size and shape of the Antarctic sea ice is consistent with a majority of the recordings from a variety of explorers. Furthermore, there are also data that have been showing that even if the size reduced by a tenth it is again slightly increasing over the past three decades. It is becoming more difficult for scientists to detect the trend in the behavior of the Antarctic.