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Variability in Antarctic sea ice from 1998 to 2017

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Abstract

This study was based on the daily sea ice concentration data from the NASA Team algorithm from 1998 to 2017. The Antarctic sea ice was analyzed from the total sea ice area (SIA), first-year ice area, and multiyear ice area. On a temporal scale, the changes in sea ice parameters were studied over the whole 20 years. The results showed that the total SIA increased by 0.0087 × 106 km2 year−1 (+ 2.08% dec−1) between 1998 and 2017. The multiyear ice area increased by 0.0141 × 106 km2 year−1 from 1998 to 2017. The first-year ice area decreased by − 0.0058 × 106 km2 year−1 between 1998 and 2017. On a spatial scale, the entire Antarctic was divided into two areas, namely West Antarctica (WA) and East Antarctica (EA), according to the spatial change rate of sea ice concentration. The total sea ice and multiyear ice areas showed a decreasing trend in WA. However, the total SIA and multiyear ice area all showed an increasing trend in EA. Therefore, Antarctic sea ice presented an increasing trend, but there were different trends in WA and EA.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Chief Editor of the Journal and the anonymous reviewers for their time and effort, which significantly improves the manuscript.

Funding

This research was supported by the Open Research Fund of Key Laboratory of Digital Earth Science, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, no. 2018LDE005; the Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science no. OFSLRSS201810; National Natural Science Foundation of China, no. 41606209; the Open Fund from Key Laboratory of Global Change and Marine-Atmospheric Chemistry, no. GCMAC1605; Natural Science Project of Henan Education Department, no. 15A120007; and the Key Laboratory of Ocean Circulation and Waves, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, no. KLOCW1805.We thank the Chief Editor of the Journal and the anonymous reviewers for their time and effort, which will significantly improves the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xingdong Wang.

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Wu, Z., Wang, X. Variability in Antarctic sea ice from 1998 to 2017. Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 22312–22322 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-05569-1

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