Antarctica has set a new sea ice record, a strange event given the rising global temperature, though scientists said global warming is the reason for the increase.

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the sea ice extent already hit the record for the third straight year and even with a few weeks to spare. On the other end of the globe, sea ice in the Arctic is shrinking, though the NSIDC said this is a contributor to the Antarctic's increase.

The southern hemisphere is also known to warm more slowly than the northern hemisphere, LiveScience noted. Also contributing to the record increase in Antarctic sea ice is a melt-off from the mainland and subsequent unrelenting freezing winds.

The NSIDC said the maximum winter sea ice in Antarctica has been growing at a rate of 1.5 percent per decade since 1979, when satellite records originated. Jan Lieser of the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre in Hobart, told New Scientist the uptick will not sustain itself.

"By 2100 we will see dramatic reductions," she said. "Once it goes belly-up it's not good for the rest of the world."

Warming at a faster rate, the northern hemisphere is experiencing the opposite end of the spectrum and the NSIDC reported the Arctic ice cap shrank to a summertime minimum of 1.96 million square miles. The figure is the sixth lowest since 1979.

"In the short term, it seems like there hasn't been much ice loss in the past couple of years, but I think it's still very much within the long-term trend of declining sea ice," Axel Schweiger, chairman of the University of Washington's Polar Science Center in Seattle, told LiveScience. "One shouldn't necessarily expect every year to be a record low.

"The ice does appear to be quite a bit thicker this year."