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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

Particularly in the Bering Sea, but also in the Sea of Okhotsk and eastern Barents Sea, the amount of sea ice was below the long-term average for 2003 – 2014. In contrast, the ice margin was above the

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

The sea ice of the Arctic and Antarctic is a unique habitat for a host of organisms, which can be found on its surface, in the brine channels that permeate it, or on its underside, in the boundary lay

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

In addition to ice extent and thickness, ice age is an important parameter for the characterisation and formation of sea ice! After all, as sea ice ages, physical characteristics like thickness, salin

On 4 March 2020, the Arctic sea-ice extent reached its winter maximum at 14.98 million km² and has been steadily declining ever since. The value is now hovering near the bot-tom limit of two standard

As our colleagues at the German overwintering station Neumayer III can attest, that doesn’t necessarily mean the weather will get warmer, but at least towards the end of the month they can look forwar

In the course of the past few decades, the sea-ice extent in the Antarctic has been characterised by significant variability – both spatially and chronologically. For example, for the observational pe