Critical Times

A piece of the Antarctic ice sheet three-quarters the size of NSW is thinning, possibly due to global warming, and a windchange could cause the world’s oceans to rise significantly.

“Surprisingly rapid changes” were occurring in the Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea Embayment, which faces the southern Pacific Ocean, polar ice experts said today.

But more study was needed to know how fast it was melting and how much it could cause the sea level to rise, they said.

The warning came in a joint statement issued at the end of a conference of US and European polar ice experts at the University of Texas in Austin.

The scientists blamed the melting ice on changing winds around
Antarctica that they said were causing warmer waters to flow beneath ice shelves.

The windchange, they said, appeared to be the result of several factors, including global warming, ozone depletion in the atmosphere and natural variability.

The thinning in the 3.2 km- thick ice shelf is being observed mostly from satellites, but it is not known how much ice has been lost because data is difficult to obtain on the remote ice shelves, they said.

Study is focusing on the Amundsen Sea Embayment because it has been melting quickly and holds enough water to raise world sea levels six metres, the scientists said.

“The place where the biggest change is occurring is the Amundsen
Sea Embayment,” said Donald Blankenship of the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics.

“One, it’s changing, and two, it can have a big impact,” he said in a webcast with a number of conference participants.

Other parts of the continent also were losing ice, he said, but generally not as quickly.

SOURCE: Reuters