• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Renewables ‘Set to Soar’ with 440 GW of New Installations in 2023: IEA June 4, 2023
Greek Industrial Giant Announces 1.4-GW Alberta Solar Farm, Canada’s Biggest June 4, 2023
Shift to Remote Work Cuts Commutes, Frees Downtown Space for Affordable Housing June 4, 2023
2.7M Hectares Lost, Nova Scotia at Ground Zero in ‘Unprecedented’ Early Wildfire Season June 4, 2023
Is Equinor’s Bay du Nord ‘Delay’ a Cancellation in Slow Motion? June 1, 2023
Next
Prev

Warmer seas speed up Antarctic ice melt

February 15, 2016
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Tim Radford

 

New scientific studies provide a further warning of the increasing vulnerability of Antarctic glaciers to faster melting as temperatures rise in the Southern Ocean.

LONDON, 15 February, 2016 – European researchers have once again warned that the thinning of the Antarctic ice shelf means that the flow of glaciers on the frozen continent could accelerate, with a consequent rise in sea levels.

  • Concise headlines. Original content. Timely news and views from a select group of opinion leaders. Special extras.
  • Everything you need, nothing you don’t.
  • The Weekender: The climate news you need.
Subscribe

They examine, in two separate studies, the increasingly precarious state of some of the ice shelf. When the shelf, consisting of ice floating on the ocean, melts, it makes no difference to sea levels. But the floating ice does have an effect on the land.

It serves as a brake on the pace of glaciers on their journey down to the sea – and the combined impact of warmer atmospheres and warmer seas in the Southern Ocean are rapidly thinning much of the ice shelf.

Johannes Fürst, a researcher at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg’s Institute of Geography in Germany, and colleagues report in Nature Climate Change that they analysed years of ice thickness data from European Space Agency satellites and airborne measurements.

Land-borne ice

They calculated that only 13% of the total ice shelf area of Antarctica could be called “passive” ice − that is, it plays no role in buttressing or slowing the land-borne ice.

But in the last 20 years, observers have measured the successive losses to large areas of the Larsen ice shelf off the Antarctic Peninsula, and these have resulted in an alarming acceleration of glacial flow on land, even though Antarctica remains the coldest continent on Earth. In some cases, the speed of flow has increased eightfold.

“If the ocean temperature rises by more than 2°C compared with today, the marine-based West Antarctic ice sheet will be irreversibly lost”

Dr Fürst says: “In contrast to the situation in Greenland, the loss of inland ice in West Antarctica is not caused by melting. It is much too cold for that to happen. The decrease is due to the glaciers flowing into the sea at a faster rate than 20 years ago − what we call dynamic ice loss.

“As ice shelves continuously lose ice by calving, it is essential to know how far the recession of ice shelves may progress before buttressing potential is reduced.”

This is not the only such warning. But science flourishes by replication.

Scientists led by Johannes Sutter, from the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research report in Geophysical Research Letters that they used computer simulations to examine the stability of the West Antarctic ice sheet and to explore what must have happened during a warm spell between Ice Ages 125,000 years ago.

Shrink and retreat

Their computer model seems to confirm the fears of successive researchers: ice is lost in two stages. First, the shelves shrink and retreat, and then the ice masses in the hinterland begin to speed up in their slide toward the sea.

As sea levels rise, the “grounding line” – the level where the ice is stuck to the rock – also retreats, and the glaciers begin to float and melt even faster.

But what happens, and how swiftly it happens, depends on human response to global warming, driven by the combustion of fossil fuels and the release of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“Our study identifies critical temperature limits in the Southern Ocean,” Dr Sutter says. “If the ocean temperature rises by more than 2°C compared with today, the marine-based West Antarctic ice sheet will be irreversibly lost. This will then lead to a significant Antarctic contribution to sea level rise of some three to five metres.

“Given a business-as-usual scenario of global warming, the collapse of West Antarctica could proceed very rapidly, and the West Antarctic ice masses could completely disappear within the next 1,000 years.” – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

moerschy / Pixabay
Biodiversity & Habitat

Planetary Weight Study Shows Humans Taking Most of Earth’s Resources

March 19, 2023
42
U.S. Geological Survey/wikimedia commons
Biodiversity & Habitat

Climate Change Amplifies Risk of ‘Insect Apocalypse’

December 1, 2022
57
Alaa Abd El-Fatah/wikimedia commons
COP Conferences

Rights Abuses, Intrusive Conference App Put Egypt Under Spotlight as COP 27 Host

November 14, 2022
30

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

/MaxPixels

‘Substantial Damage’, No Injuries as Freight Train Hits Wind Turbine Blade

May 25, 2022
14.6k
Natural Resources Canada

2.7M Hectares Lost, Nova Scotia at Ground Zero in ‘Unprecedented’ Early Wildfire Season

June 4, 2023
137
sunrise windmill

Renewables ‘Set to Soar’ with 440 GW of New Installations in 2023: IEA

June 4, 2023
113
Pixabay

Greek Industrial Giant Announces 1.4-GW Alberta Solar Farm, Canada’s Biggest

June 4, 2023
104
Inspiration 4 Photos/flickr

Cooling Upper Atmosphere Has Scientists ‘Very Worried’

May 23, 2023
498
Equinor

Is Equinor’s Bay du Nord ‘Delay’ a Cancellation in Slow Motion?

June 1, 2023
854

Recent Posts

Oregon Department of Transportation/flickr

Shift to Remote Work Cuts Commutes, Frees Downtown Space for Affordable Housing

June 4, 2023
67
Clairewych/Pixabay

Demand Surges for Giant Heat Pumps as Europe Turns to District Heating

June 4, 2023
76
nicolasdebraypointcom/pixabay

Factor Gender into Transportation Planning, IISD Analyst Urges Policy-Makers

June 4, 2023
32
moerschy / Pixabay

Federal Climate Plans Must Embrace Community-Driven Resilience

June 4, 2023
44
debannja/Pixabay

Austin, Texas Council Committee Backs Fossil Non-Proliferation Treaty

June 4, 2023
75
Ottawa Renewable Energy Co-op/Facebook

‘Hinge Moment’ for Humanity Demands ‘YIMBY’ Mentality: McKibben

June 1, 2023
75
Next Post

Better water use can cut global food gap

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}