OSLO, (Reuters) – Vast glaciers in West Antarctica seem to be locked in an irreversible thaw linked to global warming that may push up sea levels for centuries, scientists said on Monday.
Six glaciers, eaten away from below by a warming of sea waters around the frozen continent, were flowing fast into the Amundsen Sea, according to the report based partly on satellite radar measurements from 1992 to 2011.
Evidence shows “a large sector of the West Antarctic ice sheet has gone into a state of irreversible retreat”, said lead author Eric Rignot of the University of California, Irvine, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The coastal ends of the glaciers rest on bedrock below sea level, holding back a vast weight of ice and making them vulnerable to melt, he said. He likened the process to uncorking a full bottle of wine while it was lying on its side.
This part of Antarctica would be a major contributor to sea level rise in coming decades and centuries since the glaciers hold enough ice to raise sea levels by 1.2 metres (4 feet).
“It’s passed the point of no return,” he told a telephone news conference.
Ice-penetrating radars showed no mountain ranges entombed under the ice, for instance, that could halt the flow. The fastest retreat was 34-37 km (21-23 miles) over the period in the Smith/Kohler glacier.
Even so, cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, part of efforts to rein in global warming, could at least slow the slide of the Pine Island, Thwaites, Haynes, Pope, Smith and Kohler glaciers.
“We do think this is related to climate warming,” Rignot said. The scientists believed that a build-up of man-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere was affecting wind patterns around Antarctica, driving warmer waters towards the continent. Almost 200 nations have agreed to work out a U.N. pact by the end of 2015 to combat global warming, which the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says will cause more floods, droughts, heat waves and higher seas.
SEA LEVELS
Monday’s findings may also mean that scenarios by the IPCC for sea level rise are too low. The IPCC said last year that sea levels are likely to rise by between 26 and 82 cm (10 and 32 inches) by the late 21st century, after a 19 cm (7 inch) rise since 1900.
“The major ice sheets of this planet will have a larger and larger role in sea level rise in the decades ahead,” said Sridhar Anandakrishnan, professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved in the study.
