A team of scientists from the United Kingdom, Austria and the United States have revealed that more than 40% of Antarctic ice shelves have lost mass, many of them “without signs of recovery,” for more than two decades.
“We expected that most ice shelves would go through cycles of rapid, but short-lived contraction, and then grow back slowly,” said Dr. Benjamin Davison, a researcher at the University of Leeds, UK, who led the study. study, adding that, unfortunately, they have observed that “almost half of them [las plataformas de hielo] “They are declining with no signs of recovery.”
To carry out the analysis, experts evaluated more than 100,000 satellite images between 1997 and 2021. This revealed that 71 of the 162 ice shelves surrounding Antarctica, representing almost 44%, lost mass, and 62 did not change their volume. significantly, points out the study, published this Thursday in the journal Science Advances.
“We are seeing constant wear due to melting and detachment,” said Anna Hogg, co-author of the research and also a professor at the University of Leeds. She also warned that “the study has generated important findings” by proving that Antarctica is changing “because the climate is warming.”
Likewise, Davison emphasizes that “human-induced global warming is likely to be a key factor in ice loss.”
«Important chain reactions»
According to experts, if the ice shelves disappear or even shrink, “important chain reactions” will occur for the Antarctic ice system and for global ocean circulation, a gigantic ‘conveyor belt’ that carries nutrients, as well as as heat and carbon from this sensitive polar ecosystem.
Water released into the ocean from ice shelves and glaciers is fresh water. According to researchers’ estimates, almost 70 billion tons of this water flowed into the Southern Ocean around Antarctica from these platforms alone. They point out that fresh water dilutes the salt water of the ocean, making it cooler and lighter, and this in turn causes it to take longer to sink and weakens the circulation system.
Previously, Australian scientists have warned that “Antarctica may seem remote, but the changes occurring there can affect the global climate and melting ice sheets affect coastal communities around the planet.” With RT
