Over 200 Coastal Antarctic Glaciers In Accelerating Retreat

Paris - Scientists have issued a fresh warning about the effect of climate change on Antarctica, saying that more than 200 coastal glaciers are in retreat because of higher temperatures. Of the 244 marine glaciers that drain inland ice on the Antarctic peninsula, a region previously identified as vulnerable to global warming, 87 percent have fallen back over the last half century, according to research by British experts.

Using 2,000 aerial photos dating back to the late 1940s and 100 satellite pictures, experts from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) compiled a record of glacier-ice shelves and tidewater glaciers along the peninsula - the tongue of land that juts 800km northwards out of continental Antarctica.

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Over the last half century, during which time regional temperatures have risen by around 2°C, these glacier fronts have reversed direction, the authors note in a study published on Friday in the US weekly journal Science. Until the mid-1950s, most of the glaciers advanced. For the next decade after that, they were roughly stable. Since then, though, most have been shrinking. In the past five years, the retreat has accelerated, and the pattern of retreat is widening. It started in the warmer northern tip of the peninsula and is heading progressively to the colder south as atmospheric temperatures rise.

"Fifty years ago, 62 percent of the glaciers that flowed down from the mountains to the sea we looked at were slowly growing in length, but since then this pattern has reversed," said lead author Alison Cook. The average retreat of the 212 shrinking glaciers has been 600m over 50 years. But this does not take into account a dramatic acceleration in recent years, exposing numerous islands that were once ice-smothered. Sjogren Glacier, at the northern tip of the peninsula has fallen back eight kilometres since 1993, while Widdowson Glacier, on the west coast of the peninsula, has been retreated at 1,1kms per year over the past five year."

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http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=14&click_id=143&art_id=qw1114060140529B253

PBS had a great show on last night. I was watching with my conservative friend. I wanted to point to the TV and say ... hello! But I thought it best just to let it sink in slowly. But tomorrow he'll be listening to Rush Limbaugh saying it's just the LIBS !. Damn, the planet's a mess and it isn't even being discussed in the USA. Flash ahead 15 years. County is suffering under heavy debt and the environment is a miss. I have a friend that thinks in the future young gangs will regularly target the elderly in retribution of screwing up the county and the world.