Antarctic Peninsula surface melt surges 3% annually, driven by thermodynamic shifts

At the edge of the world, a brief reprieve has ended. For nearly two decades, the Antarctic Peninsula offered a rare counterpoint to the broader story of polar decline — its surface melt was slowing. Since 2009, that story has reversed, with melt accelerating at 3 percent annually, driven not by shifting winds or weather patterns but by something more fundamental: the warming of the energy balance at the very surface of the ice. What happens to these ice shelves does not stay at the poles — it travels, slowly and irreversibly, to every coastline on Earth.