A research formally linked ice losses in the poles with human-caused climate change:
OSLO (Reuters) – Both Antarctica and the Arctic are getting less icy because of global warming, scientists said on Thursday in a study that extends evidence of man-made climate change to every continent.
[…]
The Arctic has warmed sharply in recent years and sea ice shrank in 2007 to a record low. But Antarctic trends have been confusing — some winter sea ice has expanded in recent decades, leaving doubts for some about whether warming was global.
The U.N. Climate Panel, which draws on work by 2,500 experts, said last year that the human fingerprint on climate “has been detected in every continent except Antarctica,” which has insufficient observational coverage to make an assessment. [Man-made climate change seen in Antarctica, Arctic. Alister Doyle. Reuters. October 30 2008]
According to the article, making that conclusion was not possible earlier due to insufficient data.
