East Antarctic ice sheet 'vulnerable' to temperature changes

[theHandpuppet]

East Antarctic ice sheet 'vulnerable' to temperature changes
By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent, BBC News

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23868841

(short excerpt)

Researchers are also concerned about West Antarctica, where scientists have recently concluded that warming waters are causing a loss of ice from the shelf.

But most scientists have dismissed concerns over East Antarctica, the world's biggest ice sheet. Temperatures there can get down to minus 30C, meaning that it was essentially impervious to small, cyclical changes

Now a new analysis questions that assumption.

Researchers at Durham University looked at declassified spy satellite imagery dating from 1963 to 2012. They used the pictures to detect changes in 175 glaciers as they flow into the sea along the 5,400km of coastline.... MORE

Accompanying the article are some interesting satellite photos taken over the past 50 years.

[kestrel91316]

1. I always thought scientists were being boneheaded when they claimed that the East Antarctic ice

sheet was basically invincible. Not unless it's under a refrigerated dome cut off completely from the rest of the earth and the atmosphere, it's not.

Toldja so.