• Recent observations present a contrary picture in the two poles of earth. While the sea cover around Antarctica is rising, the sea ice in Arctic sea is melting away.
• The reason for this lies in the geology of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, a new NASA-led study has found.

What the study says

Two specific geological factors in Antarctic region are playing a role.

• The topography of Antarctica is influencing the flow of winds
• The depth of the ocean around the landmass affect the circulation of ocean currents

These two, in turn, affect the process of formation of Antarctica’s sea ice cover and its sustainability.

How does it happen?

• The sea ice forms and builds up early in the sea ice growth season.
• This ice later due to winds gets pushed offshore and northward forming a protective shield of thicker, older ice that circulates around the continent.
• The persistent winds flowing down slope off the continent plays help in piling of ice up against the massive ice shield, enhancing its thickness.
• This thick band of ice protects and encapsulates the younger, thinner ice from being reduced by winds and waves.
• This ice drifts away from the continent as the sea ice cover expands creating ice factories conducive to rapid sea ice growth.

ANTARCTICA IS GAINING MORE ICE THAN LOSING: NASA

Antarctica is currently gaining enough ice to outweigh the increased losses from the continent’s thinning glaciers, a new NASA study has found.
The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.

Its impact

• This net gain in ice would mean that Antarctica would not be contributing to sea level rises, but could help offset some of the major ice losses in places from Greenland and glaciers worldwide.
• Currently, it is believed that ice loss in Antarctica contributes to roughly 8% of global sea level rise. This rise can be seen in recent high tides in coastal cities like Miami.

Major concerns

• Authors of the study say the increasing loss of ice in the West Antarctic and the peninsula, plus slowing ice gains elsewhere on the continent, could mean that there will be overall losses of ice in the next 20 years.In fact, this may already be occurring, according to other researches which suggest the West Antarctic ice sheet is destabilizing, which would more than overcome the ice gains and could result in 3 meters of sea level rise.
• If this study is correct, and Antarctica is not contributing to this rise in sea level, that means scientists must be underestimating the impact from other sources of sea level rise-such as from melting from Greenland or the heating of the oceans.

SIMULTANEOUS TEMPERATURE RISE AND SHRINKAGE OF GLACIER ICE SHEETS AT NORTH POLE

• Temperatures at the North Pole rose above freezing point in December, 20 degrees Celsius above the mid-winter norm and reflecting latest abnormality in a season of extreme weather events.
• This rise in Temperatures at the North Pole is estimated to be due to very violent and extremely powerful depression caused by Storm Frank.
• This deep depression has pushed hot air as far as the North Pole, where temperatures are at least 20 degrees above normal, at around freezing point, between zero and two degrees.After tormenting the North Atlantic, the depression is expected to head towards Russia's Siberia, where the inhabitants can expect a heat wave of sorts.
•  El Niño has also been cited as a factor in the genesis of these devastating storms.
•  However, the sudden rise in winter temperatures in the North Pole could interfere with the usual process of the growth of winter ice in the Arctic.
• Sea ice during the winter maximum is becoming younger and thinner.