Arctic and Antarctic are fundamentally different: thin, frozen sea water surrounded by land vs mile-thick ice from precipitation surrounded by ice shelves floating on water. When Arctic sea ice melts it leaves patches of open water that warm up, when Antarctic ice melts it still leaves more ice beneath, but big icebergs calve off which still keep the ocean from absorbing too much sunlight. The ice shelves are constantly replenished from the icecap itself. This will continue until all the ice is gone so I suspect the system will be more resistant to excursions.

Also, glaciers can flow faster when lubricated by melt water, as is now being observed in Greenland. Is any comparable melting being observed along coastal Antarctica? What I would like to see is more data on the ice shelves, this is where changes in the Antarctic would probably first manifest themselves. Every now and then we here press reports of "icebergs the size of Rhode Island" calving off, but we never get told whether they are becoming more or less common, larger or smaller, more or less numerous.

Also, large melt-offs in Antarctica might have a more profound effect on ocean salinity than we would see in the Arctic (more fresh water). Then again, would contact with the Southern Ocean replace the salt faster than in the land-locked and river-fed Arctic Ocean? How does salinity affect the system?