Antarctic ice sheet may prove more durable than previously thought
NOV 22, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024847
New Scientist : The vast ice sheets of the Antarctic may be more stable than we thought, because a key piece of physics has been overlooked, reports Michael Marshall for New Scientist. Although the West Antarctic ice sheet has started to melt because of climate change, rather than raise sea levels as scientists had previously feared, sea levels will fall, say Natalya Gomez and Jerry Mitrovica of Harvard University and colleagues. This occurs in part because the ice’s gravitational pull on the seawater becomes weaker as the ice mass shrinks. Also, the bedrock on which the ice sheet is grounded will rise up as the weight of the ice on it drops. The group published its results yesterday in Nature Geoscience .
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
