Antarctic ice is growing as Arctic ice shrinks

Wall Street Journal : The Arctic and Antarctica are polar opposites, in more ways than one. Researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and the British Antarctic Survey report this week in Nature Geoscience that in contrast to the extensive melting of Arctic sea ice in recent years, Antarctica has been experiencing record growth. From satellite data collected 1992â2010, they have determined that sea-ice cover in Antarctica has expanded slightly in area due to local winds: It grew in the areas of the ocean where the prevailing winds spread out the ice floes, and it shrank where winds blew ice floes up against the shoreline, writes Robert Lee Hotz for the Wall Street Journal. However, what is driving Antarctic wind patternsâmdash;and the larger connection to global climate change and warmingâmdash;is not yet understood.