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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday October 12 2017, @01:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the did-they-find-aliens? dept.

We are all aware that Antarctica's ice shelves are thinning, but recently scientists have also discovered huge canyons cutting through the underbelly of these shelves, potentially making them even more fragile. Thanks to the CryoSat and Sentinel-1 missions, new light is being shed on this hidden world.

Antarctica is surrounded by ice shelves, which are thick bands of ice that extend from the ice sheet and float on the coastal waters. They play an important role in buttressing the ice sheet on land, effectively slowing the sheet's flow as it creeps seaward.

The ice sheet that covers Antarctica is, by its very nature, dynamic and constantly on the move. Recently, however, there has been a worrying number of reports about its floating shelves thinning and even collapsing, allowing the grounded ice inland to flow faster to the ocean and add to sea-level rise.

While scientists continue to study the changing face of Antarctica, monitor cracks in the surface of the ice that might signal the demise of a shelf and learn how these changes are affecting the biology of coastal waters, they are also aware of dramatic changes taking place below the surface, hidden from view.

A Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of the Earth's coastal populations?


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by hendrikboom on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:31PM (1 child)

    by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 12 2017, @02:31PM (#581143) Homepage Journal

    They have old data as well as new:

    Revisiting older satellite data, we think that this melt pattern has been taking place for at least the entire 25 years that Earth observation satellites have been recording changes in Antarctica.

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  • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday October 12 2017, @06:56PM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Thursday October 12 2017, @06:56PM (#581287) Homepage Journal

    "we think that..." is not what you write, if you have actual data. They are making shit up, to get headlines. They have no history: they are using new sensors on Cryosat specifically designed for measuring polar ice, and this satellite has only been up for 7 years. They have no idea what the underside of the ice sheets was like 20 years, 50 years or 100 years ago. Therefore, claiming massive changes is just so much bullshit.

    --
    Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.