Outspoken Science

Glaciers at Antarctica Melting at Shocking Rates

Posted on August 16, 2009 with 7 Comments

Scientist has reported that glaciers at Antarctica a melting at an alarming rates. It has been observed that “Pine Island”, a gigantic glacier in West Antarctica is melting at four times higher rate that it was 10 years ago. This glacier is around twice the size of Scotland.

Glaciers at Antarctica Region

According to a recent research, published in “Geophysical Research Letters” journal, it has been estimated that at this rate the main section of glaciers will disappear in 100 years. This is six time sooner than it was estimated previously.

This research was led by Professor Duncan Wingham at University College London, and was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council.

Pine Island:

Pine Island is one of the main glacier that is located the most inaccessible region of Antarctic. It is nearly 1000 km from the research base. This island was unnoticed for many years, but now scientists have tracked the development of glacier in past 15 years using satellite measurements.

According to Professor Andrew Shepherd of School of Earth and Environment at Leeds University, this accelerated thinning of Pine Island shows the increasing imbalance in Cyrosphere. It may remain unobserved in absence of satellite instruments. He is a co-author of research paper.

Scientist has collected a record of past 15 years, which helped them to identify the subtle and dramatic change that was hidden previously.

Role of Global Warming:

Scientist says that the retreat of glaciers in this region of Antarctica is caused by warming of surrounding oceans, but it’s too early to relate this to global warming. Some experts say that warming of Antarctic sea is a major reason to this.

Impact on Environment:

The area of Pine Island is around 5,400 km square is big enough to increase the rate at which sea level is rising around the world.

Professor Shepherd says:

“Because the Pine Island Glacier contains enough ice to almost double the IPCC’s best estimate of 21st century sea level rise, the manner in which the glacier will respond to the accelerated thinning is a matter of great concern.”

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