![]() “Taken as a whole, the generalized retreat of ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula, and especially the thinning elsewhere such as at Thwaites Glacier, shows clearly that climate change is causing accelerating mass loss from Antarctica to the oceans,” he said. A vast iceberg that broke off from Antarctic earlier this month could drift through the ocean for years before it breaks up and melts away, a scientist from the ESA said Friday. ![]() While many icebergs break off from the normal processes of Antarctica’s coastal glaciers flowing into the sea, Luckman said the changes in the west of Antarctica appear to be caused by a warming climate. Several research ships have since tried to study the pristine seabed it covered for thousands of years, but the floating ice in the Weddell Sea has been too heavy for them to get there. Iceberg A-68, which covers more than 2,000 square miles, recently left Antarctica’s Weddell Sea, heading for the Southern Ocean. If Thwaites breaks up completely and releases all its water into the ocean, sea levels would rise by more than 2 feet, Scambos said at a virtual press. Some recent scientific models predict that Antarctica’s melting alone could cause sea levels to rise by almost 2 feet by 2100. But it’s just a faction of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which holds. Scientists will be studying its effects on the ecosystem around the island. Glaciers in West Antarctica like the Thwaites and PIG worry scientists because their melting could eventually expose inland glaciers and even more ice, causing a drastic rise in sea levels. The Thwaites Glacier, located in West Antarctica, is one of the widest on Earth and is larger than the state of Florida. A chunk of Antarctic ice that was one of the biggest icebergs ever seen has met its end near the island of South Georgia.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |