New data reveals a dramatic loss of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice as well as shrinking glaciers in the Swiss Alps due to the effects of climate change
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It’s no secret that, across the breadth of the planet, ice is thinning or even vanishing altogether due to the effects of climate change. As if to reinforce this, at the end of September 2023, a string of new data painted a picture of melting ice caps and glaciers around the world.
According to scientists at NASA and the (US) National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the sea ice extent in the Arctic in late September is at one of its lowest levels ever recorded for the time of year. And, at the opposite end of the planet, the winter sea ice surrounding Antarctica reached its maximum extent on 10 September, which means it stopped expanding earlier than it should have.
But the poles aren’t the only places where the effects of climate change is causing the ice to feel the heat. After another long, hot summer, the glaciers in the European Alps are suffering. Scientists have announced that glaciers in the Swiss Alps have lost 10 per cent of their volume in just two years (6 per cent in 2022 and 4 per cent in 2023) and, even if international climate targets were to be met, that it might already be too late to save many Swiss Alpine glaciers.
Referring to the shrinking Swiss glaciers, the annual report of the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network (Glamos), whose researchers monitor 1,400 Swiss glaciers, says that the amount of ice lost in the past two years is the same as that lost in the three decades between 1960 and 1990 and that some of the smaller glaciers have actually disappeared altogether, and that all Alpine glaciers might disappear by the year 2100.
Returning to the polar regions, let’s take a look at the details. According to the study scientists, between March and September 2023, the Arctic ice cover shrank from a peak of 14.62 million square kilometres (5.64 million square miles) down to 4.23 million square kilometres (1.63 million square miles), which is considerably below the 1981-2010 average minimum of 6.22 million square kilometres (2.4 million square miles).
In Antarctica, where the bitter winter is coming to an end, the picture is very similar. The sea ice reached its maximum extent on 10 September. On this day, the ice covered 16.96 million square kilometres (6.5 million square miles). The average maximum extent between 1981 and 2010 is 18.71 million square kilometres (7.22 million square miles). This year’s maximum sea ice extent is the lowest it’s been in the time the figures have been recorded.
Discussing these changes, Walt Meier, a sea ice scientist at NSIDC says: ‘It’s a record-smashing sea ice low in the Antarctic. ‘
And, in regards to the Arctic, he says of the famed Northwest Passage in particular: ‘It’s more open than it used to be. There also seems to be a lot more loose, lower concentration ice – even toward the North pole – and areas that used to be pretty compact, solid sheets of ice through the summer.’
