New Evidence from … ANDRILL Demonstrates Climate Warming Affects Antarctic Ice Sheet Stability

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=114385&org=NSF&from=news

Press Release 09-047

New Evidence from NSF-funded ANDRILL Demonstrates Climate Warming Affects Antarctic Ice Sheet Stability

March 18, 2009

A five-nation scientific team has published new evidence that even a slight rise in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, one of the gases that drives global warming, affects the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). The massive WAIS covers the continent on the Pacific side of the Transantarctic Mountains. Any substantial melting of the ice sheet would cause a rise in global sea levels.

The research, which was published in the March 19 issue of the journal Nature, is based on investigations by a 56-member team of scientists conducted on a 1,280-meter (4,100-foot)-long sedimentary rock core taken from beneath the sea floor under Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf during the first project of the ANDRILL (ANtarctic geological DRILLing) research program--the McMurdo Ice Shelf (MIS) Project.

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"The sedimentary record indicates that under global warming conditions that were similar to those projected to occur over the next century, protective ice shelves could shrink or even disappear and the WAIS would become vulnerable to melting," Powell said. "If the current warm period persists, the ice sheet could diminish substantially or even disappear over time. This would result in a potentially significant rise in sea levels."

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"It also appears that when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations reached 400 parts per million around four million years ago, the associated global warming amplified the effect of the Earth's axial tilt on the stability of the ice sheet," he said.

"Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere is again approaching 400 parts per million," Naish said. "Geological archives, such as the ANDRILL core, highlight the risk that a significant body of permanent Antarctic ice could be lost within the next century as Earth's climate continues to warm. Based on ANDRILL data combined with computer models of ice sheet behavior, collapse of the entire WAIS is likely to occur on the order of 1,000 years, but recent studies show that melting has already begun."

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Whether the beginnings of such a collapse could start 100 years from now or within the next millennium is hard to predict and depends on future atmospheric CO₂ levels, the researchers said. However, the new information from ANDRILL contributes a missing piece of the puzzle as scientists try to refine their predictions of the effects of global warming.

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[kestrel91316]

1. Antarctica is going to completely melt before this current warming

trend is over. You heard it from me first.

Sigh.