'Winter sea ice in the Antarctic hits record low'

Sea ice in the Antarctic reached its annual maximum extent of 16.96 million square kilometres on September 10 the lowest ever recorded preliminary figures released by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado Boulder showed on Monday, with scientists warning that the decline is likely "linked to warming in the uppermost ocean layer".

- Tannu Jain

The sea ice extent was 1.03 million square kilometres smaller than the previous record set in 1986.

The record low comes at a time when the sea ice that packs the ocean around Antarctica typically reaches its largest area in the winter months, which is the northern hemisphere summer. "This is the lowest sea ice maximum in the 1979 to 2023 sea ice record by a wide margin," said NSIDC.

The maximum extent is also one of the earliest on record, having reached it 13 days earlier than the 1981 to 2010 median date of September 23, the US government supported programme said.