© NASAHeimdal Glacier southern Greenland, from NASA's Falcon 20 aircraft at 33,000 feet above sea level.
ANTARCTIC temperatures have cooled over the past six years, according to US space agency NASAAn intensive scientific study of both Earth's poles has found that from 2009 to 2016 overall temperature has dropped in the southern polar region.
NASA's Operation IceBridge is an airborne survey of polar ice and has finalised two overlapping research campaigns at both the poles. In the last few weeks NASA has revealed the overall amount of
ice has increased at the Antarctic and the amount of
sea ice has also extended. Coupled with the latest announcement of slight cooling in the area, it has fuelled claims from climate change deniers that human industrialisation is not having the huge impact on global tenperature as often is claimed.
© NASA
Christopher Shuman, a University of Maryland, Baltimore County glaciologist working at Goddard, said: "Field data suggests that there's been a modest cooling in the area over the 2009 - 2015 time period, and images collected during that time by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on the Terra and Aqua satellites show more persistent fast ice (sea ice that is attached to the shore) in the Larsen A and Larsen B embayments"
However, Mr Shuman warned that in some areas of the Antarctic, glaciers continued to melt at significant levels, despite the slight temperature drop. At the south polio, the mission observed a big drop in the height of two glaciers situated in the Antarctic Peninsula. Mr Shuman added: "These IceBridge measurements show that once the ice shelves collapse, even some cooling and a good deal of persistent sea ice is not able to hold back these larger glaciers and they continue to lose mass overall."
Comment: See also: Russia's port city of Vladivostok hit by icy tempest