You probably haven’t heard about this (no surprise), but last month the Global Environment and Marine Department of the Japanese Meteorological Agency upped the long-term trend in annual mean Antarctic sea-ice extent from 15,000 sq. km to 19,000 sq km per year.
That’s an upward adjustment of more than 25 percent. “So while chunks the size of Manhattans may break off from time to time, about 300 Manhattans of new ice gets added annually.”
Long-term increase “virtually certain”
In other words, although Antarctic sea ice dipped markedly over the past 4 years, the overall trend has been upward.
The JMA states “it is virtually certain that there has been a long-term trend of increase in the annual maximum and annual mean sea ice extents in the Antarctic Ocean since 1979.”
Moreover, Arctic and Greenland ice volume have piled up recently.
“All the talk of rapidly melting ice caps is more hysteria than reality.”
http://www.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/kaiyou/english/seaice_global/series_global_e.html