While Arctic sea ice continues to decline, Antarctic levels are confounding the world’s most trusted climate models with record highs for the third year running. Karl Mathiesen investigates.

It’s not expected,” says Professor John Turner, a climate expert at the*British Antarctic Survey. “The world’s best 50 models were run and 95% of them have Antarctic sea ice decreasing over the past 30 years.”

The winter ice around the southern continent has been growing relatively constantly since records began in 1979.*This contrasts sharply with the continuing decline of sea ice in the Arctic, which again recorded below average levels of ice during the summer.

95% of the world's 50 best models had them decreasing, that's because they were programmed to say that. So if less ice in the Arctic means global warming then more ice in Antarctica means a coming ice age, I'll stay in the middle.