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Mysterious Antarctic Region that Could Lift Sea Levels by Several Metres Must Be Studied - Researchers
Researchers from 14 countries call for coordinated data collection as limited evidence shows the basin could change rapidly under warming.
- Researchers from 14 countries published a study calling for an urgent, coordinated international effort to collect data on the Wilkes Subglacial Basin, a mysterious region in East Antarctica holding enough ice to lift sea levels by several metres.
- Since the 1990s, the basin's main Cook Glacier has been thinning at an increasing rate and now discharges 40 billion tonnes of ice into the sea annually, reinforcing that the area is at risk.
- Victoria University climate scientist Nancy Bertler noted geological records show substantial ice sheet retreat during the Pliocene, when CO2 concentrations were lower than today's 426 parts per million.
- Accessing the basin is difficult, separated from New Zealand's Scott Base and the US McMurdo Station by the Trans-Antarctic Mountains, requiring international collaboration to map the seafloor and collect sediment cores.
- Securing buy-in from nations to maintain a presence in the area is critical to identify early warning signs of imminent change that could have major implications for future sea-level rise.
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An international research team is sounding the alarm: melting processes in the Wilkes Antarctic basin could cause sea levels to rise by metres.
·Syke, Germany
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The Wilkes subglacial basin in Eastern Antarctica contains enough ice to raise the global sea level by three to four meters at full loss. An international overview shows that geology, previous warm times and models indicate a possible unstable retreat dynamics, while crucial observations are missing and time and thresholds for large ice losses remain uncertain. The researchers therefore demand a [...] The post East Antarctic Wilkes basin could i…
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gazzetta.grA new review published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment draws attention to this areaMore...
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Leaning Left1Leaning Right1Center3Last UpdatedBias Distribution60% Center
Bias Distribution
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60% Center
L 20%
C 60%
R 20%
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