Bad News Keeps Flowing From Antarctica

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Sudden onset of ice loss in Antarctica detected

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2015/may/ice-loss-in-antarctica.html

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Sudden onset of ice loss in Antarctica detected[/font]

Press release issued: 21 May 2015

[font size=4]A group of scientists, led by a team from the University of Bristol, has observed a sudden increase of ice loss in a previously stable region of Antarctica. The research is published today in Science.[/font]

[font size=3]Using measurements of the elevation of the Antarctic ice sheet made by a suite of satellites, the researchers found that the Southern Antarctic Peninsula showed no signs of change up to 2009. Around 2009, multiple glaciers along a vast coastal expanse, measuring some 750km in length, suddenly started to shed ice into the ocean at a nearly constant rate of 60 cubic km, or about 55 trillion litres of water, each year.

This makes the region the second largest contributor to sea level rise in Antarctica and the ice loss shows no sign of waning.

…

“The fact that so many glaciers in such a large region suddenly started to lose ice came as a surprise to us,” continued Dr Wouters. “It shows a very fast response of the ice sheet: in just a few years the dynamic regime completely shifted.”

Data from an Antarctic climate model shows that the sudden change cannot be explained by changes in snowfall or air temperature. Instead, the team attributes the rapid ice loss to warming oceans.

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