MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Antarctica summer ice melt at it highest level in 1.000 years
A segment of the drilled 364-metre deep ice core on James Ross Island 
The famous ‘blue-ice’ of Antarctica The summer ice melt in parts of Antarctica is at its highest level in 1,000 years, Australian and British researchers reported on Monday, adding new evidence of the impact of global warming on sensitive Antarctic glaciers and ice shelves.
Researchers from the Australian National University and the British Antarctic Survey found data taken from an ice core also shows the summer ice melt has been 10 times more intense over the past 50 years compared with 600 years ago.
“It's definitely evidence that the climate and the environment is changing in this part of Antarctica,” lead researcher Nerilie Abram said.
Abram and her team drilled a 364-metre deep ice core on James Ross Island, near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, to measure historical temperatures and compare them with summer ice melt levels in the area.
They found that, while the temperatures have gradually increased by 1.6 degrees Celsius over 600 years, the rate of ice melting has been most intense over the past 50 years.
That shows the ice melt can increase dramatically in climate terms once temperatures hit a tipping point.
“Once your climate is at that level where it is starting to go above zero degrees, the amount of melt that will happen is very sensitive to any further increase in temperature you may have,” Abram said.
Robert Mulvaney, from the British Antarctic Survey, said the stronger ice melts are likely responsible for faster glacier ice loss and some of the dramatic collapses from the Antarctic ice shelf over the past 50 years.
Their research was published in the Nature Geoscience journal.
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Read all commentsand they just can't give up with their global warming nonsense. shows how desperate they get. Sorry, people are awaking, begin to understand it's a hoax and aren't interested in paying “carbon taxes”.
Apr 16th, 2013 - 03:52 am 0@1
Apr 16th, 2013 - 09:24 am 0It would be nice to think you are right, but I truly believe you are wrong. Go on google earth and look at the ice melting away from the coast of Greenland, pushing the gulf stream further south. Also pictures of glaciers from 50 years ago and what they look like now.
Once the sea ice is gone in antartica, the shelf is just going to fall into the sea, raising levels massively.
@2 'Once the sea ice is gone in antartica, the shelf is just going to fall into the sea, raising levels massively.' .... I can understand why a dutchman would be in denial..
Apr 16th, 2013 - 10:57 am 0@1 I thought the word these days was 'climate change'... not 'global warming'.
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