Stay Signed In
Do you want to access your site more quickly on this computer? Check this box, and your username and password will be remembered for two weeks. Click logout to turn this off.
Stay Safe
Do not check this box if you are using a public computer. You don't want anyone seeing your personal info or messing with your site.
The impacts of warming temperatures in Antarctica are likely to occur first in the northern sections of the continent, where summer temperatures approach the melting point of water, 32�F (0�C). Some ice shelves in the northernmost part of Antarctica—the Antarctic Peninsula—have been collapsing in recent years, consistent with the rapid warming trend there since 1945. Scientists are also concerned about future changes in the large West Antarctic ice sheet on the main continent because its collapse could raise sea level by as much as 19 feet (5.8 meters).
The disintegrating face of the Müller Ice Shelf, Lallemand Fjord, Antarctic Peninsula, 67° South, April 2, 1999. This small shelf, fed by glaciers from the Loubet Coast, has been receding recently after growing over a 400-year cooling period. Like other receding ice shelves such as the larger Larsen, it may be a sensitive monitor of rising regional temperatures. The Larsen Ice Shelf lost a 1200 square mile section early in 2002. Earlier in the 1990's other huge sections of this shelf disintegrated. In 2003 Argentine glaciologists reported that the land-based glaciers exposed by the removal of those sections had surged rapidly into the ocean. Thus, although ice shelves are floating and do not add to sea level when they melt or break up, land based glaciers released by such events definitely will add to sea level.
This mile-long ice cliff of Marr Ice Piedmont, Anvers Island, has receded about 500 meters since the mid 1960s. The cliff's previous position was to the left of the line of ice floating in the harbor and extended to the headland at the extreme upper left. The regional temperature has increased 5° C in winter over the past 50 years. This reduces seasonal icepack, disrupts growth of krill and changes conditions on penguin rookeries.
With all of the fervor these days about the dangers of global warming many people are concerned about the fate of Antarctica. The fears are that the ice that makes up the continent is melting faster than normal and not freezing back as it usually does with a very even ebb and flow. The concerns are that this will eventually raise the sea level enough to put major cities and land masses under water and leave millions of people homeless and/or even dead.
Scientist start looking for why this is happening, and the buzzword is generally global warming. They cite the increase in certain gases like CO2 which are purportedly on the rise do to the millions of different engines that burn fossil fuels across the world. Supposedly this changes the qualities of the atmosphere that hold in the energy from the sun much like a green house does. What people don’t realize is that these are all theories to explain trends in the environment that no one has any clue about. We know that Antarctica melts in places and at certain times and since we have been measuring these things it appears that the land mass has gotten smaller—but this is very flawed thinking.
