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New York will sink into the sea :: wetter.at

The ice sheet of the Antarctic threatens to break – a sharp rise in sea level would be the result.

Scientists from Ohio State University (USA) report that the West Antarctic ice sheet is breaking apart from within. This threatens that the ice masses will no longer melt.

According to current calculations, the Antarctic would lose ice as a result over millennia – with an average rise in sea level of up to three meters per century in the first thousand years. In total, the ice of the Antarctic holds water masses that can raise the sea level by a total of 58 meters.

“The question is no longer whether the ice in West Antarctica will melt, but when,” explains glaciologist Ian Howat in a statement from the university. “The likelihood that it will happen in our lifetime has increased further.”

Crack from below

Howat relies on his observations of the Pine Island Glacier. In 2013 a gigantic crevice began to form in a valley there. In 2015, a huge iceberg finally broke off and drifted into the open sea. What worries Howat is the fact that the crack in the ice started in the middle of the mass – and not, as usual, on the outer edges, where the ice is thinner. The most likely explanation for this is a crevasse that was melted from below by warm sea water, the researcher believes. “What is really worrying is that there are many more valleys in the glacier that could become weak spots,” Howat says.

Currently, the Antarctic only contributes less than ten percent to global sea level rise. Other factors such as the extent of the warming oceans and the melting glaciers (still) play a bigger role.

Antarctica is an uninhabited continent around the South Pole. It is almost completely covered by ice and is the largest ice mass on earth, sometimes more than 4,000 meters thick. In the winter months from March to September the sun never rises and in the summer months it never sets.

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