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GeriatricGentleman writes:

Totten Glacier, the largest glacier in East Antarctica, is being melted from below by warm water that reaches the ice when winds over the ocean are strong according to research. The winds cause the surface waters to diverge (because of the effects of Earth’s rotation, surface water is transported 90° to the left of the wind direction in the southern hemisphere) allowing the warmer deep water to well up and contact the ice.

The new findings are a cause for concern because the glacier holds more than 3.5m (11 feet) of sea level rise, acts as a plug that helps lock in the ice of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (550,000 sq kms of it!) and local surface winds are projected to intensify over the next century as a result of increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/3/11/e1701681.full.pdf

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