MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Fleming Glacier in Antarctica shows signs of receding

Scientists from Chile's Center of Scientific Studies (CECS), Antarctic Chilean Institute, and Air Force reported last week that Fleming Glacier, located in the Antarctic Peninsula, is showing signs of receding.

This study comes on the heels of "Global Warming Challenges to Chile," a seminar organized by CECS in which scientists confirmed that global warming was responsible for receding glaciers. With a land mass of 6,200 square kilometers and two kilometers thick, Fleming Glacier is one of the largest in the region. Aerial photographs of the glacier's surface reveal cracks that are so large that small planes could fit into them. Furthermore, numerous ice floes border the edge of the glacier – a sign that the ice mass is splintering. Even more alarming, however, is the rate at which the glacier is receding. According to Andrés Rivera, a glacierologist with CECS, "preliminary results of this campaign show us that Fleming Glacier is moving at a velocity 50 percent greater than in the 1970s. And on top of that, the fragmentation is greater". In the 1970s, the glacial mass moved between two and four meters per day, but today the scientists say it is moving four to eight meters per day. Rivera attributes this phenomenon to global warming, saying that "the Antarctic Peninsula is the region that has experienced the greatest atmospheric warming on the planet." If the temperature in the rest of the world is estimated to have risen 0.5 degrees Celsius per century, then Antarctica's has increased by six degrees Celsius in the last century. Rivera also explained that Fleming Glacier deposits 6.8 cubic kilometers of ice into the ocean each year. In light of global warming, he predicts that the glacier will continue to gradually thin and that this statistic will increase with each successive year. The scientists will embark on two more expeditions to study Antarctic glaciers. They expect to complete their studies by January 2008. The Santiago Times