COMPARISON OF CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ANNUAL VARIABILITY OF THE AREA OF SEA ICE OF THE NORTH AND SOUTH
The results of comparative analysis of the characteristics of interannual variability, including trends in sea ice extent area (SIEA) of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres for 1979-2017 period are presented according to the satellite data. Fundamental differences in the "behavior" of trends have been noted. While there was a constant decrease in ice cover in the Arctic throughout the period under consideration, in the Antarctic there was an increase in the area of sea ice cover until 2014, which was followed by its rapid reduction. During 3 years (2015-2017), it decreased by 2 million square km, which exceeds the decrease in sea ice in the Northern Hemisphere by 0.1 million square km during 40 years. The causes for both the increase in the sea ice area and its rapid reduction are plagued by uncertainty and are debatable in nature. The intensification of interannual variability of SIEA, which is a consequence of a general increase in climate variability, is shown. The trend being excluded, the frequency structure of the time series of the PRML of the northern and southern hemispheres corresponds to the model of a random stationary process in the form of “white noise”. Since the “white noise” accounts for about 90% of the variance of the time series of the SIEA of the southern hemisphere, this is the reason for the unsatisfactory description of sea ice by mathematical models