Antarctica changes quickly. The consequences can be terrible

This story is originally Appear Barrier It is part of Climate cooperation.

From space, Antarctica looks much simpler than other continents – a large sheet of ice unlike the dark water of the South Ocean. The approach is more, and you will find a simple cover of frozen water, but unusually complex interaction between the ocean, marine ice, ice panels and shelves.

This relationship is in danger. new paper In the journal Nature, many “sudden changes”, such as the loss of harmonious marine ice over the past decade, are revealed in the Antarctica and the surrounding waters, which enhances each other and threatens to send the continent after the point of no return – and the flow of coastal cities everywhere with the sea rising several feet.

“We are witnessing a full range of surprising and amazing changes that develop throughout the Antarctica, but it does not happen in isolation from others,” said climate scientist Nerry Abram, author of The Paper. (She conducted the research while she was at the Australian National University, but she is now the chief scientist in the Australian Australian Pole Department.)

Scientists define sudden change as part of the environment that changes much faster than expected. On Antarctica, these can occur on a set of times, from days or weeks for the collapse of the ice shelf, and pods and outside of ice boards. Unfortunately, these sudden changes can recur and become uncompromising as humans continue to heat the planet. Abram said: “They are the options that we are now making, and this contract and the inconsistent, for greenhouse gas emissions that will put these obligations to change in the long term.”

One of the main driver of the successive Antarctic Crises is the floating marine ice loss, which is formed during the winter. In 2014, it reached its climax (at least since the satellite notes began in 1978) about Antarctica about 20.11 million square kilometers, or 7.76 million square miles. But since then, marine ice coverage has not decreased significantly, but almost incredibly, the contract is 75 miles closer to the coast. During the winter season, when SEA ICE reaches the maximum coverage, it decreased 4.4 times faster around Antarctica than it was in the Arctic in the past decade.

In other words, the loss of winter marine ice in the Antarctic continent over the past decade is similar to what the Arctic has lost over the past 46 years. “People always think that Antarctica was not changing compared to the northern pole, and now I think we see signs that this is no longer the case,” said climate scientist Ryan Vaget, who is studying Antarctica at Ohio University but was no longer involved in the new paper. “We see that quickly – and in many cases, it changes in many cases in the southern pole of the Arctic recently.”

While scientists need to collect more data to determine whether this is the beginning of a basic shift in Antarctica, the signals so far are ominous. Zakari M. Lab, the climate world is studying the region in the research group, which was not involved in the new paper: “We started to see that the parts of the image begin to appear that we may be good in this new case of the dramatic loss of the marine ice in Antarctica.”