Major Antarctica glacier is melting faster

Major Antarctica glacier is melting faster
Monday, June 27, 2011
BY ALEX MORALES
BLOOMBERG NEWS
The Record

West Antarctica's biggest glacier is melting 50 percent faster than in 1994, adding to a global increase in sea levels, U.S. and U.K. scientists found.

The Pine Island glacier is losing about 30 cubic miles of ice per year, the researchers at Columbia University in New York and the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England, said Sunday. That is up from 20 cubic miles in 1994.

The study in the journal Nature Geoscience is based on data from a 2009 expedition.

Scientists are grappling to understand how much Antarctica's ice could contribute to higher sea levels after the United Nations in 2007 predicted they will rise by 7 to 23 inches this century. Just how much of that will come from the southern continent remains uncertain.

More:
http://www.northjersey.com/news/124579899_Major_Antarctica_glacier_is_melting_faster.html