The climate change situation in the Southern Oceans (those seas surrounding Antarctica and connected by the massive Antarctic Circumpolar current) have been anomalous for many years, decades even. While even the earliest climate projections from the 1980s suggested that the climate change signal around Antarctica would be muted (especially compared to the Arctic), they did not predict that it would actually cool – which it actually has (at least until around 2015/2016). Similarly, the increase in sea ice extent (again to around 2015) was not expected.
