Antarctic ice shelves at risk of collapse, says study
Loss of an area that is bigger than UK may hit sea levels
A PLATFORM of ice surrounding Antarctica which is nearly four times the size of the UK is at risk of collapse, according to a new study.
It suggests that more than 350,000 square miles of floating ice shelves could split if fractures on their surface are submerged due to the effects of climate change.
Such a sudden loss would accelerate the flow of glaciers into the sea and raise sea levels around the world – with previous studies suggesting they could rise by a metre by the year 2100.
A team involving geoscientists from the University of Edinburgh studied a process called hydrofracturing to analyse satellite images of the area.
Dr Martin Wearing, of the university’s School of GeoSciences, was among those taking part in the study.
He said: “We’ve seen in the past that the sudden collapse of ice shelves can trigger rapid acceleration of the glaciers that flow into them, and, in turn, sea- level rise.
“We have found that stresses within vast sections of Antarctica’s ice shelves are sufficiently large that they could collapse if, as climate models predict, surface melting increases substantially in coming years.
“We hope our use of machine learning is a first step towards further applications of AI ( artificial intelligence) in the analysis of the ever- growing quantity of data from the polar regions.”
The findings suggest around 60 per cent of the ice- shelf area supporting the main sheet is vulnerable.
The water from increased surreported face melting could enlarge fractures in these sections, according to the team.
The study, published in the journal Nature, was led by researchers from Columbia University in the US.
It also involved Utrecht University and Google, with the work supported by the National Science Foundation and the Dutch Research Council.
The news comes after it was
that a small rock found in Antarctica is helping scientists to solve a mystery about the early building blocks of life.
It was reported that a team of Japanese and Belgian researchers stumbled upon a small rock,
now known as meteorite Asuka 12236, during an expedition to Antarctica. It is now believed that this golf- ball sized object can offer insights into the development of molecules in living cells.
Astrobiologists at NASA’s Goddard
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, are reported to have discovered that the primitive rock specimen is rich in amino acids, the building blocks of the human and animal body tissues which play an essential role in the functioning of physical and mental processes.
Various types of amino acids make arrangements that form into proteins important for essential bodily functions. They found both left- handed and righthanded varieties. However, decoding the meteorite’s composition unveiled a great proportion of left- handed ones.
Scientists can build a timeline of how these organic materials evolve over time.
It is believed that Asuka is one of the oldest meteorites that “predates the solar system.” This makes it the best preserved in a category of carbon- rich meteorites known as CM chondrites.
They could collapse if surface melting increases. Dr Martin Wearing from the University of Edinburgh.