"[Ice] is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap." (Greg Roberts, The Australian)
This sentence may be regarded as a Myth...
What do you think about this issue?
May check out this for some information :
http://www.skepticalscience.com/antarctica-gaining-ice-intermediate.htm
Thank you Dr. Lee for your contribution.
"While the interior of East Antarctica is gaining land ice, overall Antarctica has been losing land ice at an accelerating rate. Antarctic sea ice is growing despite a strongly warming Southern Ocean".
In this expression, total ice mass is increasing but land is decreasing. So, what we should say at general expression (Increase or decrease)?
In short, in terms of ice sheet mass balance, the Antarctic ice sheet has been losing ice during the last two decades, mainly due to the loss in the West Antarctica. The ice sheet mass loss contributes to the global sea level rise. For more detailed trend, you may visit the following sites:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter04_FINAL.pdf
http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/antarctic-ice-sheet-surface-mass-balance/
http://takvera.blogspot.hk/2014/01/antarctic-ice-mass-accelerating.html
Maybe the following report would help you understand more
http://www.scar.org/publications/occasionals/acce
Cheers!
Greetings Ugur,
Cryosphere dynamics are curious. Satellite images show that –contrary to the Arctic– winter Antarctic sea ice has expanded. This must not be conclusive at all, in terms of saying that warming 'does not exist' in the above mentioned area. In fact, this expansion is because of the rising temperatures: Ice sheets start to melt, causing an expansion which ends freezing in the periphery. But if you analyze the heights of the ice sheets these are smaller than previous years.
East Antarctica ice sheet is important to these dynamics, and it's a fact that it's polythermal. The Antarctic Peninsula is a region that has experienced very rapid warming over the last 50 years, and this has been attributed with the collapse of a number of ice shelves and accelerating glacier mass loss (Larsen-B collapse evidences the warming).
Hope that helped
Cheers!
Ugur,
Here I'm attaching some extra recent news about the discussion above
Maximum Antarctic Sea-Ice animation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/03/16/the-melting-of-antarctica-was-already-really-bad-it-just-got-worse/
Hidden channels beneath East Antarctica IceSheet cause massive melt:
http://www.livescience.com/50174-east-antarctica-glacier-melt.html
Enjoy it!
may be the ice layer thins down to cover more area but at the same time the sea level rises due to global warming.
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