Published in ERW, 29 Jul 2015
Researchers in China have found that the albedo, or reflectivity, of the Antarctic rose over a 28 year period beginning in the early 1980s. The results chime with other observations that sea ice has been growing in the region and could help scientists to understand what’s happening.
The Antarctic is something of an anomaly in climate science. Unlike the Arctic, where the extent of summer sea ice has shrunk severely in recent years, the Antarctic has seen an average annual growth in sea ice of some 15,000 square km. And unlike its northern counterpart, for which a fall in sea ice has been largely consistent with climate-model predictions, the Antarctic’s behaviour has confounded climate modellers who have attempted to explain it. […]
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