New evidence suggests that two major glaciers in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) are losing ice at the fastest rate for at least 5,500 years.
New evidence suggests that two major glaciers in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) are losing ice at the fastest rate for at least 5,500 years.
At the current rate of retreat the vast glaciers, which extend deep into the heart of the ice sheet, could contribute as much as 3.4 metres to global sea level rise over the next several centuries.
Antarctica is covered by two huge ice masses: the East and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, which feed many individual glaciers. Because of the warming climate, the WAIS has been thinning at accelerated rates over the past few decades. Within the ice sheet, the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers are particularly vulnerable to global warming and are already contributing to rises in sea level.
Now, a new study led by the University of Maine and the British Antarctic Survey, including academics from Imperial College London, has measured the rate of local sea level change – an indirect way to measure ice loss – around these particularly vulnerable glaciers.
Read more at: Imperial College London
Thwaites glacier, which is nearly the size of Great Britain. (Photo Credit: NASA)
