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Continued Antarctic Melting

Climate Change Impact Upon Antarctica

Jan 27, 2009 Matthew Tanner

Global Warming is having an impact all over the globe, and new evidence suggests Antarctica is warming at the same rate.

Concern about the impact of Climate Change is growing after scientists announced that a whole ice shelf will soon break away from Antarctica. A report, published in the journal Nature, states that the continued warming of the continent is impossible to explain without the increased green house gases in the Earth's atmosphere. This warming, it is argued, will have massive knock-on consequences for climate change as we know it.

Wilkins Ice Shelf

Experts say that the Wilkins Ice Shelf is “hanging by a thread” and that although scientists have known for many years that this part of the continent has been getting warmer, the rate of melting has still been very alarming.

One BAS (British Antarctic Survey) team, who are currently (January 2009) on site in Antarctica, has concluded that the shelf, around 15,000 sq km, is likely to break free soon. BAS expert David Vaughan said; “It really could go at any minute, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the final cracks started to appear very soon”.

It will not be the first time that a breakaway of this magnitude has occurred, since the relatively large breakaway of the Larsen B shelf in 2002. The breakaway of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, while not being as dramatic, will be further evidence of the human induced warming of both Antarctica and the rest of the globe.

Antarctic Insulation

Only last year scientists from the UK Meteorological Office found that human greenhouse gas emissions were primarily responsible for the increased warming seen in Antarctica. However, this research clashed with IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) data from 2007, which concluded that there has been large man made warming during the last 50 years “over each continent except Antarctica”.

This was thought to be because, as a continent, Antarctica is largely insulated from the rest of the world's weather systems by winds and ocean currents (caused by what scientists call Thermohaline Circulation) that circulate around the perimeter. But this new scientific data now shows that, similar to the other six continents, Antarctica has seen a very significant warming over the past 50 years.

However, while being very dramatic, scientists have stressed that breakaway events such as these are not necessarily man made. Indeed, the major question for experts is whether the increased Antarctic temperatures will lead to a much higher level of melting which would potentially lead to huge changes in sea level and thus climate change. And, while theories on the specific impact of Antarctic warming remain fairly refutable, the evidence of the sheer scale of this warming is looking almost irrefutable.

The copyright of the article Continued Antarctic Melting in Meteorology & Climatology is owned by Matthew Tanner. Permission to republish Continued Antarctic Melting in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Antarctica