Study: Global Warming Could Destroy Antarctic Ice Shelves With 'Huge implications For Sea Level'

Most of Antarctica’s ice shelves around the continent remain frozen around the year and are stable. However, fractures on the surface make them vulnerable to rapid collapse if rising temperatures drive meltwater into the gaps, claims a new study.

An international research team said in the paper published in Nature?that the "Ice shelves, which float in the ocean at the edge of the continent, are a crucial barrier to glaciers moving from the land to the sea, and their sudden failure could therefore have 'huge implications for sea level'."

Representational Image/Reuters

Ice shelves are formed in the protected waters of the continent’s numerous expansive bays and gulfs. The land on either side compresses the ice and this pressure helps maintain the ice shelves.?

But large fractures ‘appear as the ice nears the open ocean. The land on either side drops away and the ice shelves are free to stretch out. Satellite observations show that as a result of this freedom, the shelves rip apart. Most of them are raked with numerous long fractures perpendicular to the direction of stretching’, Independent explains.?

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Representational Image/reuters

Fractures at the surface can be tens of metres deep. Others that form from the bottom, can penetrate hundreds of meters upwards in the ice. Some of these fractures are hundreds of metres wide.

‘It is these large cracks, combined with warming temperatures that have raised concerns about the continued stability of the ice shelves’, the report says.?

Other research has shown that even slight temperature swings can cause widespread melting.

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The study suggest that this could send ‘meltwater surging into the surface fractures. Such surges would potentially cause hydrofracturing – a process in which liquid water, which is heavier than ice, violently forces the fractures to “zip open”, and causes the shelf to rapidly disintegrate’.?

According to scientists, between 50 per cent and 70 per cent of the areas of the ice shelves buttressing the glaciers are vulnerable to such processes.