Antarctic ice sheet thinning - scientists
Pastor Dale Morgan
Antarctic ice sheet thinning - scientists*
From correspondents in Houston
March 29, 2007 11:03am
Article from: Reuters
A PIECE of the Antarctic ice sheet the size of Texas is thinning,
possibly due to global warming, and could cause the world's oceans to
rise significantly, polar ice experts say.
They said "surprisingly rapid changes" were occurring in Antarctica's
Amundsen Sea Embayment, which faces the southern Pacific Ocean, but that
more study was needed to know how fast it was melting and how much it
could cause the sea level to rise.
The warning came in a joint statement issued at the end of a conference
of US and European polar ice experts at the University of Texas in Austin.
The scientists blamed the melting ice on changing winds around
Antarctica that they said were causing warmer waters to flow beneath ice
shelves.
The wind change appeared to be the result of several factors, including
global warming, ozone depletion in the atmosphere and natural variability.
The thinning in the 3.2km- thick ice shelf was being observed mostly
from satellites, but it was not known how much ice had been lost because
data was difficult to obtain on the remote ice shelves, they said.
Study was focusing on the Amundsen Sea Embayment because it had been
melting quickly and held enough water to raise world sea levels 6m, the
scientists said.
"The place where the biggest change is occurring is the Amundsen Sea
Embayment," said Donald Blankenship of the University of Texas Institute
for Geophysics.
"One, it's changing, and two, it can have a big impact," he said in a
webcast with a number of conference participants.
Other parts of the continent also were losing ice, he said, but
generally not as quickly.