Relationship of the Extent of Antarctic and Arctic Ice with Temperature Changes, 1979–2020

Abstract

Abstract Quantitative estimates of the relationship between interannual variations in the extent of Antarctic and Arctic sea ice and changes in the surface air temperature in the Northern and Southern hemispheres are obtained using satellite, ground-based, and reanalysis data for the past four decades (1980–2019). It is shown that the previously noted general increase in the extent of Antarctic sea ice observed until recent years from satellite data (available only since the late 1970s) over the background global warming and a rapid decrease in the extent of Arctic sea ice is associated with a regional decrease in the surface temperature at Antarctic latitudes from the end of the 1970s. This is a result of regional manifestation of natural climate variations with periods of up to several decades against the background of global secular warming with a relatively weak temperature trend over the ocean in the Southern Hemisphere. Since 2016, a sharp decrease in the extent of Antarctic sea ice in the Southern Ocean has been observed. The results of the correlation and cross-wavelet analysis indicate significant coherence and negative correlation with the surface temperature of the extent of sea ice in recent decades, not only in the Arctic, but also in the Antarctic.