New research finds that ice-sheet-wide collapse in West Antarctica isn’t inevitable: the pace of ice loss varies according to regional differences in atmosphere and ocean circulation.
New research finds that ice-sheet-wide collapse in West Antarctica isn’t inevitable: the pace of ice loss varies according to regional differences in atmosphere and ocean circulation.
An international team of researchers has combined satellite imagery and climate and ocean records to obtain the most detailed understanding yet of how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet – which contains enough ice to raise global sea level by 3.3 metres – is responding to climate change.
The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Washington, found that the pace and extent of ice destabilisation along West Antarctica’s coast varies according to differences in regional climate.
Read more at: University of Cambridge
Getz Ice Shelf of the Amundsen Sector, West Antarctica, and sea ice offshore. (Photo Credit: ©NASA/USGS, processed by Dr Frazer Christie, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge.)
