Polar ice hit where it hurts, says expert
Annual sea ice near the Oates Coast of Antarctica
Antarctic ice sheets contain over 90 percent of all fresh water at Earth’s surface. Bindschadler said warming in the oceans is hitting the ice sheets where it hurts. Photograph by: Mike Usher, National Science Foundation
See a larger version of this image.
Earth’s warming oceans might be behind big changes at Earth’s poles.
Earth & Sky spoke with Robert Bindschadler at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Bindschadler is one of the planners of the International Polar Year – going on now – with thousands of scientists from over 60 nations collaborating to study Earth’s poles. He talked about his recent study of the Antarctic ice sheets. They contain over 90 percent of all fresh water at Earth’s surface. Bindschadler said warming in the oceans is hitting the ice sheets where it hurts.
Robert Bindschadler: We think the ice sheets, in particular the West Antarctic ice sheet, are most vulnerable at its edge where it meets the water. And that’s because the bottom of an ice sheet is where the real action takes place. That’s where the stresses forcing the ice to move are largest because it has the weight of the full ice sheet above it.
Bindschadler said he and other scientists are concerned about rapid change in West Antarctica ice.
Robert Bindschadler: Things are changing much, much faster than we ever thought they could.
Our thanks today to NASA, in celebration of the International Polar Year.
Climate Change: The Limits of Consensus from Science Magazine (subscription required)
Our thanks to:
Robert Bindschadler
Chief Scientist
Laboratory for Hydrospheric and Biospheric Processes
Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA
Greenbelt, Maryland USA
Why are we so worried about global warming.It’s gradual and takes a pretrty long time to happen. It is not like one day our climate changes and New York city is flooded one day. Besides they say the change is faster then ever. I think it is just that we have finally noticed this change not that all the sudden it is happening.
Why are we so worried about global warming? Because warming will be flooded not just NY, but deffernt city too. Hovewer what we can to do today we should doing that today not tomorrow because it can to be so lite.