Arctic Ice(Source: statista.com)The Arctic sea ice minimum extent, which occurs in September, has been consistently shrinking. Even the winter maximum, which occurs in March, was a record low at 14.33 million square kilometers, a full 1.31 million square kilometers below the 1981 to 2010 average. The Antarctic is a continent with a huge land-based ice sheet, which is surrounded by sea ice. The Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing a net amount of 100 to 200 billion tons of ice per year. This extra heat then causes even more ice to melt, creating a cycle of faster warming and ice loss.