Ocean Heat Blamed for the Mysterious Disappearance of Glaciers
Steve Connor
"At this rate the glaciers will all be afloat in 150 years or so."
Satellite measurements have shown that the Antarctic glaciers are retreating in a uniform manner, suggesting a common cause. Air temperatures over Antarctica are much too cold for any significant surface melting, which suggests that the flow of the glaciers into the sea is being aided by melting at their base, lubricating their movement into the ocean.
In a study in the journal Science, Dr Wingham and colleague Andrew Shepherd of Edinburgh University found that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have together contributed a sea level rise of 0.35mm a year over the past decade - about 12 per cent of the current global trend.
While the retreat of the Greenland ice sheet can be linked to melting of the glaciers' surface, the same it not true of the four major glaciers in the Antarctic identified by Wingham and Shepherd.
"These glaciers are vulnerable to small changes in ocean temperature," he said. "A rise of less than 0.5C could have triggered the present imbalance."
However, it would take about 200 years for extra heat from the ocean to reach the underside of the glaciers, which makes it difficult to believe that the present shrinkage is due to global warming, Dr Wingham said.