Marine ice sheet instability The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is the world’s most vulnerable ice sheet. This is because it is grounded below sea level, and marine ice sheets such as these are susceptible to rapid melting at their base. Fast-flowing ice streams draining the WAIS (Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier in particular) […]
Is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsing? Read More »
How does mass balance vary over Antarctica? | Surface mass balance in the past | Surface mass balance in the future | References | Comments | How does mass balance vary over Antarctica? Is Antarctica currently losing or gaining mass? Will this massive ice sheet grow or shrink in the future? And what effect will
Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance Read More »
How much sea level rise? | Climate change and rising sea levels | The West Antarctic Ice Sheet | How much sea level rise from Antarctica? | Comments | How much sea level rise? How much will global sea levels rise in our lifetime, or in the lifetime of our children? We need to know
Dealing with uncertainty: predicting future sea level rise Read More »
The following is a list of publically available Antarctic datasets. These datasets are often freely accessible, usually providing that you cite the source and often a relevant paper. Do not use data without correct attribution. Many of these datasets have been used in the creation of figures on this website, and I thank all the
Antarctic datasets Read More »
A new paper by Levermann et al. in PNAS uses the record of past rates of sea level rise from palaeo archives and numerical computer models to understand how much sea level rise we can expect per degree of warming in the future. These data suggest that we can expect a global sea level rise
Sea level rise over the next 2000 years Read More »
Investigating Pine Island Glacier | Why is Pine Island Glacier important? | Pine Island Glacier ice shelf | Pine Island Glacier: the longer term view | Conclusions | References | Comments | Investigating Pine Island Glacier A fast-flowing ice stream Pine Island Glacier is one of the largest ice streams in Antarctica. It flows, together
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The Antarctic continent | The Antarctic Ice Sheets | Ice streams, subglacial lakes and ice shelves in Antarctica | Wildlife of Antarctica | Exploration of Antarctica | References | Comments | The Antarctic continent Antarctica: the enigmatic, romantic, remote white continent. Antarctica lies at the bottom of the world and all waters south of 60°S
How much ice is there in Antarctica? And if it were to melt, how much would global sea levels rise, and how quickly?
Antarctica’s contribution to global sea level rise Read More »
Introduction | Topography | Oceanography | Ice streams and ice shelves | References | Comments | Introduction The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (the WAIS) is capable of rapid change as it is a marine ice sheet and therefore could be unstable. It has the potential to raise global sea level by 3.3 m[1] over a
West Antarctic Ice Sheet Read More »
Introduction | Past evidence of ice sheet collapse | Hypothesis of marine ice sheet instability | References | Comments | Introduction In 1978, Mercer was one of the first to identify that rising temperatures could have catastrophic consequences in West Antarctica, triggering a collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet[1]. This is because much of
Marine ice sheet instability Read More »
