Tag: Antartica

Antarctic glacier thinning more rapidly than thought: study

by Marlowe HOOD PARIS, France (AFP) — A large glacier in West Antarctica lost up to half a kilometer in thickness in seven years, thinning more quickly than scientists thought possible, according to a study released Tuesday. The Smith Glacier, spilling into the Amundsen Sea, shed up to 70 meters (230 feet) per year between 2002 and 2009, according to the study, based on NASA data collected during aerial flyovers. “If I had been using […]

Reprieve for Australian sub-Antarctic island station

by Martin PARRY SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia’s permanent sub-Antarctic research base at World Heritage-listed Macquarie Island has won a reprieve from closure and will instead get a multi-million dollar revamp, the government said Friday, in a boost for science. The Australian Antarctic Division announced in September the station on the island — which lies in the Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica — would shut after almost seven decades due to environmental contamination concerns and […]

Greenland ice melting faster than thought

MIAMI, United States (AFP) — Greenland’s highly unstable ice sheet is melting more than seven percent faster than previously thought, scientists said this week after discovering a hotspot beneath the Earth’s crust that was distorting their calculations. The study in the journal Science Advances raises concern about the increasing impact of melting ice on sea level rise, since Greenland is the second largest ice sheet in the world after the one in Antarctica. From 2003-2013 […]