warming melting huge antarctic glacier
Sydney-The largest glacier in East Antarctica,containing ice equivalent to a six-metre (20-foot)RISE IN GLOBAL sea levels,is melting due to warm due to warm ocean water,Australian scientists said on Monday.
File photo of a penguin strolling past the King Sejong Korean station in Antartica The 120-kilometre (74.4 mile)loืg Totten Glacier,which is more then 30 kilometres wide,had been thought to be in an area untouched by warmer currents.
But a just-returned voyage to the frozen region found the waters around the glacier were warmer than expected likely melting the ice from below.
we knew that the glacier was thinning from the satellite data, and we did not know why
the voyage is chief scientist Steve Rintoul told Ahe said than up until recently the East Antarctica ice sheet had been thought surrounded by cold waters and therefore very and unlikely to change much.
But the voyage found that waters around the glacier were some 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than other areas visited on the same trip during the southern hemisphere summer.