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In the polar regions, sea ice follows a distinctly seasonal cycle, and every year roughly 15 million square kilometres of ice are formed and melt in the Antarctic. But this winter, the ice growth has

After the Antarctic sea-ice extent reached an all-time low in February 2023, new sea ice has only slowly formed in the months since. Particularly in the Bellingshausen Sea, uncharacteristically for th

In the Antarctic, the month of February is considered to be high summer in terms of the seasonal decline in sea-ice extent. The extent reaches its lowest point in the year, while in the course of the

This year, sea-ice development in the Antarctic is progressing extremely slowly and, after May, once again reached a record-low monthly sea-ice extent in June. At 11.23 million km², the monthly mean s

“On 8 February 2023, the Antarctic sea-ice extent had reached 2.2 million km² - less than the previous record minimum from 2022. Since the sea-ice melting in the Antarctic will most likely continue in

This was a few thousand km 2 below the previous record low from 1997. The mean sea-ice extent for February, at 2.4 million km², was another historical low (Figure 2). This minimum is the result of ver

While the summer minimum was reached in the Antarctic on 19 February 2020 (at 2.68 million km²), in the Arctic the extent has been growing steadily since the end of February, and hasn’t yet reached it

While the Arctic sea ice continues to decline, a glance at the Southern Ocean reveals a different picture: in recent years and decades, the sea-ice extent has increased slightly – albeit with clearly

In contrast, the pack ice is now steadily growing in the Antarctic. This year, observations of the sea-ice extent development in both hemispheres reveal a trend clearly below the long-term average. Th

In the Arctic, the influence of the sunlight steadily increases until, on 21 June, the Polar Day begins north of the Arctic Circle and the sun never sets for several weeks on end. In the Antarctic, th