How the South Pole has changed over the last 30 years
Antarctica is a large continent of ice that experiences fluctuations in the amount of sea ice that surrounds it. During the winter months this ice expands, retreating again during the summer as the weather gets warmer. Since the beginning of satellite observations of the icy continent in 1979, Antarctic sea ice has increased by one per cent per decade. However, since 2014 Antarctica has experienced several drops in sea ice production. In 2017 Antarctica had a record-breaking low annual sea ice coverage of 815,000 square miles – 71,000 square miles below the previous minimum, which occurred in 1997. The images on the opposite page show how this ice coverage has changed over the decades, during the Antarctic summer retreat.