In 1981, experts blamed loss of Antarctic sea ice on global warming

EVIDENCE IS FOUND OF WARMING TREND
By ROBERT REINHOLD, Special to the New York Times
Published: October 19, 1981

To measure possible changes around the Antarctic ice pack, where ground stations are sparse, the Columbia team compared recent satellite photographs of the extent of the ice pack with old Soviet and American atlases and with whaling ship reports from 1929 to 1934.

They found that the typical summer ice pack had decreased about 35 percent, by 2.5 million square kilometers, or about 1 million square miles from 1973 to 1980. The Antarctic ice cover was also found to be considerably lighter than shown in atlases published in 1957 and 1966 and in the ship reports from the 1930’s. This was taken as an indirect measure of higher temperatures.

‘‘It is just where we expected it from…