<
https://theconversation.com/west-antarcticas-ice-sheet-was-smaller-thousands-of-years-ago-heres-why-this-matters-today-225670>
"As the climate warms and Antarctica’s glaciers and ice sheets melt, the
resulting rise in sea level has the potential to displace hundreds of millions
of people around the world by the end of this century.
A key uncertainty in how much and how fast the seas will rise lies in whether
currently “stable” parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet can become “unstable”.
One such region is West Antarctica’s Siple Coast, where rivers of ice flow off
the continent and drain into the ocean.
This ice flow is slowed down by the Ross Ice Shelf, a floating mass of ice
nearly the size of Spain, which holds back the land-based ice. Compared to
other ice shelves in West Antarctica, the Ross Ice Shelf has little melting at
its base because the ocean below it is very cold.
Although this region has been stable during the past few decades, recent
research suggest this was not always the case. Radiocarbon dating of sediments
from beneath the ice sheet tells us that it retreated hundreds of kilometres
some 7,000 years ago, and then advanced again to its present position within
the last 2,000 years.
Figuring out why this happened can help us better predict how the ice sheet
will change in the future. In our new research, we test two main hypotheses."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
