Antarctic ice

One cannot criticise UKIP's Jane Collins on Any Questions? for raising the recent extension of Antarctic sea ice as an argument against most reasonable people's perception of global warming. Since the late 1970s, the Antarctic ice cover has increased by about 1% according to that NASA research.

However, those data should not be read in isolation. At the same time, Antarctic ice shelves have been shrinking and glaciers have been flowing faster. The latter process appears to this non-scientist to be a likely contributor to the increase in sea ice, so that the length and breadth of ice cover may be increasing, but the depth and therefore the volume and therefore the volume are probably decreasing. This article summarises the relevant reports and predicts the malign effects.