but scientists say a new record low so close to the previous one is notable. we have satellite records which show how much sea ice there is year to year, and in the arctic, we can see there has been a trend, very clear downward trend through time. in the antarctic, it's different, the sea ice concentrations vary year to year, there is a lot of variability, and some years you get very high concentrations and other years you get very low concentrations. so, 2022 has been the year with the lowest concentration so far. the year with a previous lowest concentration was 2017, so within that record, it is very striking that we have these two years with exceptionally low concentrations. whether this is a trend is too early to say but it is absolutely something which we need to watch very, very carefully.