Antarctic ice is NOT rapidly melting experts say, as explorers’ notes from 100 years ago show levels unchanged
Researchers pore over notes by heroic adventures Captain Scott's and Ernest Shackleton to make astonishing discovery
POLAR explorers remembered as 'heroic failures' have provided crucial proof that sea ice around Antarctica has barely changed in size - 100 years after their expeditions.
Ships' logbooks from expeditions by Captain Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton and the German Erich von Drygalski observed ice levels and show that the Antarctic may have fluctuated significantly throughout the 20th century.
Climate researchers suggest the sea swung between decades of high ice cover followed by years of low cover rather than enduring a steady downward trend.
It also shows that the Antarctic sea ice is much less sensitive to the effects of climate change than that of the Arctic, which in stark contrast, has experienced a dramatic decline during the 20th century.
University of Reading scientists estimates the extent of Antarctic summer sea ice is at most 14 per cent smaller now than during the early 1900s, after comparing the explorer's logbooks in new research.
Dr Jonathan Day, who led the study, said: "The missions of Scott and Shackleton are remembered in history as heroic failures, yet the data collected by these and other explorers could profoundly change the way we view the ebb and flow of Antarctic sea ice.
"We know that sea ice in the Antarctic has increased slightly over the past 30 years, since satellite observations began.
"Scientists have been grappling to understand this trend in the context of global warming, but these new findings suggest it may not be anything new.
"If ice levels were as low a century ago as estimated in this research, then a similar increase may have occurred between then and the middle of the century, when previous studies suggest ice levels were far higher."
Captain Scott perished, along with his team in 1912, missing out on being the first to the South Pole after being beaten by a matter of weeks by Norwegian Roald Amundsen.
And Shackleton's ship sank after becoming trapped in ice, in 1915, as he and his crew journeyed to attempt the first ever cross-Antarctic trek.
But their logs, showing where the Antarctic ice edge was during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, from 1897 to 1917, have shed light on sea ice extent before the 1930s.
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They suggest the levels in the early 1900s were in fact similar to where satellites show it is today, at between 5.3 and 7.4 million square kilometres.
Although one region, the Weddell Sea, did have a significantly larger ice cover.
This new study, published in The Cryosphere, builds on international efforts to recover old weather and climate data from ships' logbooks.
Dr Day said: "The Southern Ocean is largely a 'black hole' as far as historical climate change data is concerned, but future activities planned to recover data from naval and whaling ships will help us to understand past climate variations and what to expect in the future."
In addition to using ship logbooks from three expeditions led by Scott and two by Shackleton, the researchers used sea-ice records from Belgian, German and French missions, among others.
But the team was unable to analyse some logbooks from the Heroic Age period, which have not yet been imaged and digitised.
These include the records from the Norwegian Antarctic expedition of 1910-12 lead by Amundsen, the first person to reach both the south and north poles.
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