The collapse of ice shelves in Antarctica has seen some of the most dramatic images of human-induced climate change. The collapse of the Prince Gustav and Larsen A Ice Shelves in 1995 and then the collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelve in 2002 stunned scientists, and provided vivid images of the potential future of the southern continent.
New research released today has explained the extent of warming in Antarctic Peninsula, painting a picture of a future of rapid warming and melting ice. The research showed that the Peninsula has seen a rapid warming over the past 100 years, but that this has also come on top 600 years of more gradual, natural warming in the region.
The research was conducted by an international team of climate scientists, including Dr Nerilie Abram from the Australian National University. The team drilled a 364 metre long ice core spanning thousands of years on James Ross Island. Ice cores show scientists the incremental buildup of the annual layers of snow, providing a time-capsule that shows the climate record over the age of the core. James Ross Island is adjacent to the Larsen A & B and Prince Gustav ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula, which have both seen large collapses recently.
Dr Abram says the warming over the past 100 years has been dramatic. ”The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming places on Earth at the moment,” Dr Abram said. ”The last century of warming has been unusually rapid with the mean temperature increasing by about one and a half degrees — one of the fastest temperature increases seen in the ice core record.”....
A glacier in the Antarctic Peninsula, shot by PaoMic, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license
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