by Marlowe HOOD Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — As global warming outpaces efforts to tame it, scientists have proposed building massive underwater structures to prevent an Antarctic glacier the size of Britain from sliding into the sea and lifting the world’s oceans by several meters. The more modest of two engineering schemes — which is still on the scale of a Panama or Suez Canal — to shore up Thwaites Glacier would require […]
Tag: glacier
UK, US launch biggest-ever study of Antarctic glacier
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Britain and the United States on Monday launched a research program billed “the most detailed and extensive examinations of a massive Antarctic glacier ever undertaken” to gauge how quickly it could collapse. Teams from Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) will visit the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica to assess if its cave-in could begin in the next few decades or centuries. […]
Antarctica: a laboratory for climate change
by Mathilde Bellenger Agence France Presse ANTARTICA (AFP) — A decade ago, a thick layer of ice covered the Collins Glacier on Antarctica’s King George Island. Now, the rocky landscape is visible to the naked eye, in a region that is both a victim of and a laboratory for climate change. “I had the opportunity to come here over a 15-year period, and even within a human’s lifetime, you can already see the changes brought […]
Swiss couple found on glacier 75 years after disappearance
Geneva, Switzerland (AFP) — A couple who disappeared in the Alps 75 years ago has been found preserved in a receding glacier, ending decades of uncertainty for their seven children, Swiss media reported Tuesday. The bodies were found lying near each other in the Diablerets massif in southern Switzerland, along with backpacks, a bottle, a book and a watch, according to Le Matin daily. The head of the Glacier 3000 ski resort, Bernard Tschannen, told Le Matin that the […]
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 […]





