Antarctica has set a new sea ice record, which is odd considering the global temperature is rising, though scientists said global warming is likely the reason for the increase.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSICD) said this week the sea ice extent already hit the record for the third straight year with a few weeks to spare.
Sea ice in the Arctic is shrinking, though the NSIDC said this is a contributor to the Antarctic's increase.
The southern hemisphere is also known to warm more slowly than the northern hemisphere, according to LiveScience.com. A melt-off from the mainland and subsequent unrelenting freezing winds is another contributor to the record increase.
The NSIDC said the maximum winter sea ice in Antarctica has been growing at a rate of 1.5 percent per decade since 1979, when satellite records originated.
Jan Lieser of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre in Hobart, said to New Scientist the increase will not sustain itself.
"By 2100 we will see dramatic reductions," she said, according to the publication. "Once it goes belly-up it's not good for the rest of the world."
The northern hemisphere, which is warming at a faster rate, is going through the opposite end of the spectrum. The NSIDC reported that the Arctic ice cap shrank to a summertime minimum of 1.96 million square miles, which is the sixth lowest since 1979.
"In the short term, it seems like there hasn't been much ice loss in the past couple of years, but I think it's still very much within the long-term trend of declining sea ice," Axel Schweiger, chairman of the University of Washington's Polar Science Center in Seattle, told LiveScience. "One shouldn't necessarily expect every year to be a record low.
"The ice does appear to be quite a bit thicker this year."
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