
Originally Posted by
Naturist Mark
That is incorrect. The ice at one pole doesn't affect the ice at the other pole. But the global climatic conditions that affects one also affects the other. In this case warming has increased the amount of sea ice melting during Arctic summers, and warmer oceans cause more precipitation during winter - which in Antarctica causes more accumulation of ice over land - but in fact, the sea ice surrounding Antarctica, which unlike Arctic sea ice is formed on land and flows over water in glacial ice sheets - IS receding much more rapidly in Antarctic summers than in the past.
Got that? Increased precipitation - due to warmer oceans - causes more snow to fall over the Antarctic land mass, thus the ice is growing thicker, but when the ice flows off the land as glacial ice sheets, those ice sheets are breaking up much faster in the southern summers.