Massive Antarctic Glacier Has Entered Irriversible Melt, Could Add Up To 1 Centimeter To Sea Level
"Massive Antarctic Glacier Has Entered Irriversible Melt, Could Add Up To 1 Centimeter To Sea Level"
CREDIT: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
After last week’s Arctic-fueled cold snap — dubbed the ‘Polar Vortex’ — brought freezing temperatures and claims of climate change denial to the attention of the general public, the situation has now returned to normal. Or the new normal at least — in which climate change happens out-of-sight and out-of-mind for many Americans.
One of the latest indicators that climate change is progressing whether we’re looking or not comes from a study in the journal Nature Climate Change finding that one of the largest glaciers in Antarctica has started melting irreversibly.
An international team of researchers found that Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier, the single largest Antarctic contributor to sea-level rise, could add as much as one centimeter to ocean levels within the next 20 years.
The glacier “has started a phase of self-sustained retreat and will irreversibly continue its decline,” Gael Durand, a glaciologist with France’s Grenoble Alps University, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
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