West Antarctica is an ominous place.
In this exceptionally remote region, ice is breaking off into the sea faster than it’s naturally replenished by snowfall. Massive icebergs — recently one five times the size of Manhattan — have broken off into the ocean more frequently since 2001. This is bad. As West Antartica’s ice shelves — the ends of great glaciers that float over the ocean — continue snapping off, eventually they’ll lose the critical point at which they’re grounded to the ocean floor, resulting in their collapse. Critically, these grounded ice shelves act like plugs, holding back West Antarctic ice sheets from flowing unhindered into the ocean. Read more…
More about West Antarctica, Climate Change, Geoengineering, Pine Island Glacier, and Thwaites Glacier
Source : Snow cannons can stabilize melting Antarctic ice shelves, physicists say
