I have to say that The Independents' article doesn't explicitly say that climate change is the driver of this sudden change and this does match up with the original article (see here for link -
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2.../25/1906556116 PNAS article - nice!)
What's interesting here is that antarctic sea ice has been increasing over the years from 1978 to around 2014 at which point it suddenly dropped back to 1978 levels in 3 years. What it does illustrate is that the climate can change suddenly and surprisingly at a rate much faster than expected. Also that there is some correlation between sea ice changes and conditions further afield. However, that paper is very much saying what has happened, not why...
Here's another article about this research from New Scientist -
https://www.newscientist.com/article...dont-know-why/
I have to say that the author of this paper has a hell of a CV! -
https://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/sed/bi...re.l.parkinson