Warming Up Faster In West Antarctica
The discovery raises further concerns about the future of the Antarctic contribution to sea level rise, a new study found an ice sheet in West Antarctica is warming almost twice as much as previously thought.
The research was published online in the Journal Nature Geoscience, 2012, Central West Antarctica among the most rapidly warming regions on Earth.
Byrd Station, West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), noted an increase in average annual temperature of 2.4 degrees Celsius since 1958, three times faster than the increase in average temperatures around the world.
According to David Bromwich, professor of geography at Ohio State University and senior scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center, the temperature increases nearly double what previous studies and reveal the warming trend during the summer months in the southern hemisphere.
Researchers considered the report WAIS highly sensitive to climate change, because the base of the ice sheet is below sea level and vulnerable to direct contact in the warm ocean water. Melting ice is currently about 0.3 mm is increasing every year, contributing to sea level rise of 0.7 mm per year is expected.
