Successive Antarctic sea ice extent records during 2012, 2013, and 2014 [in “State of the Climate in 2014”]

The calendar years of 2012, 2013, and 2014 saw successive records in annual daily maximum (ADM) net Antarctic sea ice extent based on satellite data since 1979 (Massom et al. 2013, 2014; section 6g), continuing the trend over the past three decades of an overall increase in Antarctic sea ice extent (Comiso 2010; Parkinson and Cavalieri 2012) and contributing to regional changes in sea ice seasonality (Stammerjohn et al. 2012). However, the mechanisms and associated regional anomalies involved in achieving each of these records were quite different.