Antarctic Sea Ice Extent Smashes Record

Sea ice extent surrounding Antarctica has smashed the previous record, covering more of the southern oceans than it has since satellite tracking started in 1979, according to NASA.

However, while the Antarctic is on an up swing, the Arctic is on a downward spiral, with sea ice decreasing in the wintertime twice as fast as what the Antarctic is increasing.

"The planet as a whole is doing what was expected in terms of warming. Sea ice as a whole is decreasing as expected, but just like with global warming, not every location with sea ice will have a downward trend in ice extent," Claire Parkinson, a senior scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a news release.

Some people see Antarctica's increasing trend as a sign that global warming isn't real, according to NASA research scientist Dr. Walt Meier, but that's simply not true.

Since the late 1970s, the Arctic has lost an average of 20,800 square miles (53,900 square km) of ice a year while the Antarctic has gained an average of 7,300 square miles (18,900 square km). And on Sept. 19, for the first time since 1979, Antarctic sea ice extent exceeded 7.72 million square miles (20 million square kilometers), a new record.