A new study from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis validates that the central core of the East Antarctic ice sheet should remain stable even if the West Antarctic ice sheet melts.
The study's findings are significant, given that some predict the West Antarctic ice sheet could melt quickly due to global warming.
A new study from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis validates that the central core of the East Antarctic ice sheet should remain stable even if the West Antarctic ice sheet melts.
The study's findings are significant, given that some predict the West Antarctic ice sheet could melt quickly due to global warming.
If the East Antarctic ice sheet, which is 10 times larger than the western ice sheet, melted completely, it would cause sea levels worldwide to rise almost 200 feet, according to Kathy Licht, an associate professor in the Department of Earth Sciences in the School of Science at IUPUI.
Licht led a research team into the Transarctic Mountains in search of physical evidence that would verify whether a long-standing idea was still true: The East Antarctic ice sheet is stable.
Read more at Indiana University
Image: Team members taking a short ice core to study properties of sediment coming from the East Antarctic ice sheet. Credit: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
