Warming of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

… a breakup of the ice sheet, … could raise global sea levels by 10 feet, possibly more.

— Gillis (2012): Scientists Report Faster Warming in Antarctica in The New York Times.

In an excellent article, Justin Gillis highlights a new paper that shows the West Antarctic Ice sheet to be one of the fastest warming places on Earth.

The black star shows the Byrd Station. The colors show the number of melting days over Antarctica in January 2005. This number increases with warming temperatures (image from supplementary material in Bromwich et al., 2012).

Note to math students: The scientists use linear regression to get the rate of temperature increase.

The record reveals a linear increase in annual temperature between 1958 and 2010 by 2.4±1.2 °C, establishing central West Antarctica as one of the fastest-warming regions globally.

— Bromwich et al., (2012): Central West Antarctica among the most rapidly warming regions on Earth in Nature.

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