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Shrinking ice sheet

Pictures of spreads from New Scientist magazine

ICE in the heart of Antarctica is retreating, causing the sea level to rise. "This is nothing like anyone has seen beforeit's a huge amount of ice," says Andrew Shepherd at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, University College London.

Shepherd and his colleagues used satellites to monitor the largest glacier in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Pine Island Glacier. They discovered it is losing ice faster than snowfall can replenish it. If it continues to melt at the current rate, it will disappear in 600 years, raising global sea level by a catastrophic 5 metres (Science, vol 291, p 862). "This is the first time we have seen an Antarctic glacier retreating," says Shepherd. "The concerns for sea level rise are real in that respect."



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