A section of the West Antarctica ice sheet is melting so quickly that nothing can stop the glaciers in the area from melting completely into the surrounding ocean, a group of scientists from NASA and the University of California-Irvine reported in a study released today.
From observing the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica for the past four decades, the scientists have concluded that the glaciers there "have passed the point of no return," said Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at U.C. Irvine and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and lead author of the study,published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The study, announced in a NASA press conference Monday, noted that the glaciers and ice shelves along the Amundsen Sea (shown in the video below) already release roughly the same amount released by the entire Greenland ice sheet into the ocean every year, and contain enough ice to raise the world's sea level by about 4 feet.
No comments:
Post a Comment