Antarctica’s Floating Ice Shelves, the Doorstop of the Continent, Are Melting Away
How bad is Antarctic ice loss? Let scientists count the ways. In December, researchers reported that West Antarctica, one of the world’s most unstable ice sheets, is collapsing faster than anyone had predicted and contributing to rapid sea level rise. Earlier this month, the same was found to be true of Totten Glacier in East Antarctica.
This week, glaciologists report the massive floating ice shelves that form a fringe along the continent’s coastline are also deteriorating. For hundreds of thousands of years, these shelves have served as doorstops for the entire Antarctic ice sheet system, holding back millions of cubic miles of glaciers from surging toward the sea. And now they’re losing heft faster than they can be replenished.
In a study published in the March 27 issue of the journal Science, researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego found that Antarctic ice shelves have been losing volume at an increasing pace in the past 18 years.
More: Antarctica’s Floating Ice Shelves, the Doorstop of the Continent, Are Melting Away