From here:
What awaits Pachauri will certainly be eye-opening.
The amount of sea ice around Antarctica has recently set several all-time high records. The greatest extent of sea ice observed since satellite observations began in 1979 was observed during the Southern Hemisphere winter of 2007 and the greatest sea ice anomaly (departure from average), occurred during the summer of 2007-08, breaking the old record by more than an additional 500,000 square kilometers. While sea ice is not the same as the land ice that Rignot was studying, it is, nevertheless, a major part of the Antarctic cryos...

From here:
What awaits Pachauri will certainly be eye-opening.
The amount of sea ice around Antarctica has recently set several all-time high records. The greatest extent of sea ice observed since satellite observations began in 1979 was observed during the Southern Hemisphere winter of 2007 and the greatest sea ice anomaly (departure from average), occurred during the summer of 2007-08, breaking the old record by more than an additional 500,000 square kilometers. While sea ice is not the same as the land ice that Rignot was studying, it is, nevertheless, a major part of the Antarctic cryosphere. So Pachauri will witness an icier ocean surrounding Antarctica for the time of year than at any time since satellite records began.
The behavior of the Antarctic cryosphere is not well understood or explained. Sea ice extent is growing, and land ice may be shrinking. It is not known whether either of these trends will continue. Neither matches climate model projections and current changes do not well-represent the recent past. There is no firm scientific basis to predict or account for Antarctic snow and ice variability. Statements to the contrary are ill-founded.