Fact Check: Viral claim misleads on climate change effects, citing spike in Antarctic sea ice extent in December 2024
Virar post attempts to disprove the broader trends of global warming, including shrinking Antarctic sea ice sheet basing their argument on the 17 percent increase in sea ice extent for a few days in December 24, 2024 while oversimplifying the complex nature of climate change science.
Claim :
Antarctica's sea ice extent increased by 17 percent on December 24, 2024, compared to the same date in 1979Fact :
Random fluctuations in Antarctic sea ice extent do not indicate the absence of climate change impacts
Recently, the United Nations declared 2025 as the International Year of Glaciers' Preservation aiming to raise awareness and promote action to preserve glaciers. In a first, March 21 will be observed as the World Day for Glaciers.
As the top global leaders met in Davos for the 55th WEF Annual Meeting, the focus shifted to the environmental crisis being faced by Antarctica which is home to 91 percent of the world’s glaciers. With the loss of the ice sheet at an average rate of about 150 billion tonne per year, the melting is projected to be the major contributor of rising sea level by 2100.
Amid the growing concern for melting of the ice sheet, a screenshot of an X post claiming that the “Antarctica's sea ice extent has increased by 17 per cent on December 24, 2024, compared to the same date in 1979. Ice doesn’t lie but climate scientists do” is being widely circulated on social media.
The viral post link is available here and the screenshot is below:
Fact Check:
During the investigation, the Telugupost Fact Check team found this claim to be misleading as the user has ignored the empirical data on melting of billions of tonne on glacier ice every year.
A closer look at the details of the viral image showed that the data is purportedly shared by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), University of Colorado Boulder.
When we explored the website, we found a link which has the data and graphs on daily sea ice indexes for both Arctic and Antarctic regions.
As we looked around, we found another article written titled “Can sea ice data ever be misused?” by Michon Scott.
“Depending on who is using the data and to what end, sea ice data can be misinterpreted and lead many to the wrong conclusions,” Michon wrote. He added that, “Since the start of the continuous satellite record in November 1978, Arctic sea ice has exhibited a clear downward trend. Antarctic sea ice has exhibited little trend with extreme year-to-year variability over the same period.”
As we continued our search, we found an article by the Guardian, which reported that Antarctica recorded its lowest annual maximum amount of sea ice around the continent in September 2023 and scientists fear that “global heating” might have started affecting the region. But, in December 2024, “Antarctic sea ice rebounded after a long period of record lows, US scientists said.”
“By the end of 2024, Antarctic sea ice extent had recovered to 7.3 million square kilometres (2.8 million square miles) -- very close to the 1981 to 2010 average,” NSIDC said.
The investigation revealed that the Antarctic sea ice extent has witnessed significant changes in the last few decades. The experts have warned against discrediting the empirical data and decadal-scale trends which give a clear picture about the impact of climate change on the largest ice desert in the world. Hence, the claim based on cherry-picked data in the viral post is misleading.
