This chart shows the level of Antarctic sea ice over the years since the level was measured by satellite since the 1970's:
The last three years of record melt are shown. Summer has some way to go this year, so the melt can be expected to reduce the record low coverage of 1.91sq km further. That is enough ice to cover Great Britain and Ireland. Only the Weddell Sea remains ice-covered. Data sources going back to 1900 indicate that Antarctic sea ice has shown great variability in recent years with record maximums in winter and record minimums in summer. The trend was in decline in the early the last century, but started to increase later, contrary to computer models showing a gradual decline in sea ice. The annual freeze-thaw cycle in Antartica is hugely important to the ocean conveyor the mass movement of water which regulates global climate.
Observers think that record sea ice melting is influenced by record temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula shown in this chart:
