Multinational Science Team's Findings - Even Slight Boost In CO2 Decreases WAIS Stability - AFP

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A five-nation scientific team has published new evidence that even a slight rise in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, one of the gases that drives global warming, affects the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). The massive WAIS covers the continent on the Pacific side of the Transantarctic Mountains. Any substantial melting of the ice sheet would cause a rise in global sea levels.

The research, which was published in the March 19 issue of the journal Nature, is based on investigations by a 56-member team of scientists conducted on a 1,280-meter (4,100-foot)-long sedimentary rock core taken from beneath the sea floor under Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf during the first project of the ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing) research program--the McMurdo Ice Shelf (MIS) Project. The National Science Foundation (NSF), which manages the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP), provided about $20 million in support of the ANDRILL program. The other ANDRILL national partners contributed an additional $10 million in science and logistics support.

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The second ANDRILL study in Nature--led by David Pollard of Pennsylvania State University and Rob DeConto from University of Massachusetts--reports results from a computer model of the ice sheets.

The model shows that each time the WAIS collapsed, some of the margins of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet also melted, and the combined effect was a global sea level rise of 7 meters above present-day levels. Whether the beginnings of such a collapse could start 100 years from now or within the next millennium is hard to predict and depends on future atmospheric CO2 levels, the researchers said. However, the new information from ANDRILL contributes a missing piece of the puzzle as scientists try to refine their predictions of the effects of global warming.

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http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Climate_Warming_Affects_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet_Stability_999.html