Natural Disasters Antarctic 2024: ‘2023 just blew everything off the charts’: Antarctic sea ice hits troubling low for third consecutive year. For scientists monitoring Antarctica, these are troubling signs that the sea ice extent — a crucial factor in maintaining stable climate conditions around the globe — has shifted irrevocably. Antarctic had failed to replenish a chunk of ice bigger than Western Europe.
Story by Ben Turne Live Science
The sea ice extent around Antarctica has dropped below 2 million square kilometers (772,000 million square miles) for the third year in a row — a record that experts say is further evidence that the continent is entering a “new regime” that could cause global ripple effects.
Sea ice extent around the southern continent hit a minimum of 1.99 million square kilometers (768,000 square miles) on Feb. 20, according to scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center.
This figure is tied with 2022 for the second-lowest extent in the 46-year history of such observations. And it’s only 200,000 square km (77,000 square miles) above the lowest ever extent of 1.79 million square km (691,000 square miles), set on Feb. 21, 2023.
For scientists monitoring Antarctica, these are troubling signs that the sea ice extent — a crucial factor in maintaining stable climate conditions around the globe — has shifted irrevocably.
“2023 just blew everything off the charts,” Ariaan Purich, an Antarctic climate researcher at Monash University in Australia, told Live Science. “Nothing like 2023 has occurred in the observational record before. It’s not a little bit low; it’s incredibly low.”
Since satellites began monitoring Antarctic sea ice in 1978, its extent has typically fluctuated between relatively stable summer minimums and winter maximums.
The sea ice has served a variety of functions: providing a stable home for emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri) to rear their young; shielding vulnerable glaciers from warming seawater; reflecting some of the sun’s rays back into space; and driving nutrients, oxygen and carbon dioxide across global ocean currents, fostering marine life.
But in recent years, scientists have been witnessing an astonishing change in the sea ice extent. One record low in 2016 was followed by another in 2022, and then a third in 2023.
As winter fell over the continent in March 2023 (a period when sea ice typically recovers at pace) scientists observed six months of never-before-seen lows. By the height of the winter season in July, the Antarctic had failed to replenish a chunk of ice bigger than Western Europe.
The spate of record minimums has led scientists to suggest that the Antarctic could be shifting into a lower state in which future summers pass without any ice protecting the continent’s ice shelves from the seawater.
Recent research has also indicated that the sea ice extent has become much more erratic in recent years — a further clue that an “abrupt critical transition” has occurred, according to the study.
In the wake of spotting this worrying change, scientists have called for better monitoring and data reading of the continent; increased funding for collaborative research; and the urgent slashing of greenhouse gas emissions.
“If Antarctica stops cooling the planet and starts acting to heat, then we’ll all see rapid warming” — above 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius), Martin Siegert, a glaciologist who led an investigation of the shift on behalf of the U.K. Foreign Office, told Live Science. “And it will be largely unstoppable once that process kicks in; it’ll be really difficult to rectify it.
“It’s an issue that we are unlocking for the future,” he added. “Not just our future, but our children’s and those that come after, as well. Our only way forward is to decarbonize.”
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In His Service,
Night Watchman
Paul Rolland
Night Watchman Ministries
Make Your (7) Decision for Christ NOW!!!!!!! Time is Up!!!!!!!
Jesus Christ’s Offer of Salvation:
The ABCs (7) of Salvation through Jesus Christ (the Lamb)
- (7) Admit/Acknowledge/Accept that you are sinner. Ask (7) God’s forgiveness and repent of your sins.
. . . “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23).
. . . “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.” (Romans 3:10).
. . . “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8).
B. Believe Jesus is Lord. Believe that (7) Jesus Christ is who He claimed to (7) be; that He was both fully God (7) and fully man and that we are (7) saved through His death, burial, and resurrection. (7) Put your trust in Him as your (7) only hope of salvation. Become a son (7) or daughter of God by receiving Christ. (7777777) 7×7
. . . “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:15-17). For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13).
C. Call upon His name, Confess (7) with your heart and with your lips (7) that Jesus is your Lord and Savior.
. . . “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10).
. . . “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (John 1:8-10).
. . . “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (John 2:2).
. . . “In this was manifested the love of god toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” (1 John 4:9, 14-15).
. . . “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” (Romans 5:8-10).
. . . “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23).
. . . “Jesus saith unto them, I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6).
. . . “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” (Romans 1:16).
. . . “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts: 4:12).
. . . “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth for there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:4-6).
. . . “For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9).
. . . “But as many as received him, to them gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.” (John 1:12).
True Church / Bride of Christ Spared from God’s Wrath:
Romans 5:8-10. “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”
Romans 12:19. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 1:10. And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
1 Thessalonians 5:9. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
Romans 8:35. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Jeremiah 30:7. Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.
Revelation 3:10 Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.