The Crosson Ice Shelf (center) and Mount Murphy (foreground) in Antarctica. Ice shelves are sensitive… The ice that hangs off Antarctica’s western edge is melting at a faster clip than it is being replenished, according to new research published Tuesday. Researchers estimate that between 2002 and 2009, Smith Glacier lost roughly between 980 and 1,600 feet of ice thanks to increased melting at its so-called grounding zones, regions where ice goes from being on land to floating on water, creating what looks like a shelf. Understanding how ice shelves are changing is crucial to predicting sea-level rise , said Ala Khazendar, a polar scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the study’s first author. Sea-level rise is already affecting coastal cities, like Miami , and scientists think the problem will only worsen globally as the planet warms. The authors also found that between 2009 and 2014, […]

Posted in: p-