Scientists ‘Unexpectedly’ Find The Declining Sea Ice Trend Since 1980 Has Radiatively Cooled The Earth

The alarmist narrative that says disappearing sea ice serves to enhance and worsen global warming may now be discarded.

For decades it has been assumed the sea ice concentration (SIC) reduction trend in the the Arctic over the first 30 years of the satellite era (1979-2007, with a flat trend since then) would lead to a precipitous decline in reflective albedo. Consequently, with more open water rather than brightly reflective ice, the Arctic would perpetually warm even more than it already has.

But now, according to analysis found in a new Science Advances study, this assumption may no longer be valid.

Image Source: Zhou et al., 2025

The global top of atmosphere (TOA) radiative effect of SIC changes, Δ𝑅, is dependent not just on SIC trends in the Arctic, but on SIC trends in Antarctica as well. The Southern Hemisphere’s SIC has been increasing throughout most of the satellite era, especially from 1979 to 2015.

Globally, then, the Δ𝑅 of Antarctic SIC gains asymmetrically offsets the Δ𝑅 stemming from Arctic SIC reduction due to SIC-induced albedo feedback processes. Thus, the modern era global SIC trends have served to “cool Earth.”

“[N]umerical simulations indicate that the bulk radiative effect of SIC reduction with certain spatial patterns (e.g., trends during 1980–2008) could even cool Earth due to the hemispheric asymmetry of SIC change.”

“[T]he negative trend during this period [1980-2008] is primarily induced by the SIC increase in the Antarctic regions. … [T]he radiative cooling induced by Antarctic SIC growth is greater than the radiative heating induced by Arctic SIC reduction.”

To reiterate, the Δ𝑅 of declining global sea ice concentration (SIC) from 1980-2008 has led “to planetary cooling” due to the “radiative cooling induced by Antarctic SIC growth”. This is the opposite of what promulgators of disappearing-sea-ice alarmist narratives have been claiming for decades.

The authors of the paper accordingly describe the SIC-induced global cooling radiative effect stemming from declining global SIC as an “unexpected” development.

“Unexpectedly, the trend of global Δ𝑅 [radiative effect of sea ice changes] is negative despite the statistically significant decrease of global SIC between 1980 and 2008, implying that global SIC reduction leads to planetary cooling during this period.”

Finally, it is interesting that the chart shown in the top right (Fig. S3) indicates not only has the SIC-induced Δ𝑅 change been flat to declining in recent decades, there also has been no obvious SIC-induced Δ𝑅 change or trend since ~1875.

Could sea ice alarmism be disappearing?