“The scale of Antarctica is startling. Miles of ice stretch to the horizon, growing thicker as you move toward the South Pole.”
“Scientists at McMurdo Station are working to understand the continent’s history and to predict its future. The scale of the task is enormous.”
“This is the last of three dispatches from a New York Times reporting trip to Antarctica.”
“From the air, the Ross Ice Shelf looks like a vast white plain extending to the horizon. The monochromatic landscape is relieved only occasionally by rocks poking through, or by deep crevasses in the ice itself.”
“Scientists are racing to understand what is happening to the Ross Ice Shelf — and the rest of Antarctica — as the planet warms around it. They are trying to map the thickness of the ice and the shape of the sea floor beneath it in an effort to gauge how vulnerable the shelf may be to collapse, and how soon that could happen.”
“Scientists are also trying to measure the role of human-caused climate change in weakening some parts of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and to fathom how damaging the seas around the continent might prove to be as they warm over time.”
“The answers carry profound implications for humanity. In the scientists’ worst-case computer simulations, continued global warming will cause the Ross Ice Shelf to weaken and collapse starting as early as the middle of this century.”
“Right now, the shelf works like a giant bottle-stopper that slows down ice trying to flow from the land into the sea. If it collapses, the ice could flow into the ocean more rapidly, an effect that has already happened on a much smaller scale in other areas of Antarctica.”
“The most vulnerable parts of the West Antarctic ice sheet could raise the sea level by 10 to 15 feet, inundating many of the world’s coastal cities, though most scientists think that would take well over a century, or perhaps longer. They are worried about a possible rise of as much as six feet by the end of this century.”
““We’re hoping to figure out how warm water can get to the edge of the ice sheet,” said Robin E. Bell, head of the Columbia University laboratory that sent a team to survey the Ross Ice Shelf late last year. “What are the sort of hidden roads it can go on?””
“The warmer water seems to be doing the most damage to a series of glaciers that flow into a region of West Antarctica called the Amundsen Sea. Satellites have identified the most rapid loss of ice there, raising a critical question: Has an unstoppable collapse of the ice sheet already begun?”
“The Amundsen Sea region is one of the remotest parts of the continent, far from American and British research bases. Working together, the two countries are planning to devote tens of millions of dollars to getting better measurements there, having decided that it is imperative to begin answering questions about the region’s potential collapse.”
“Unraveling the answers, and gaining a better understanding of how Antarctica’s ice has waxed and waned in the past, may offer a rough guide to the changes that human-caused global warming could wreak in the future.”
“Already, scientists know enough to be concerned. About 120,000 years ago, before the last ice age, the planet went through a natural warm period, with temperatures similar to those expected in coming decades.”
“The sea level was 20 to 30 feet higher than it is today, implying that the ice sheets in both Greenland and Antarctica must have partly disintegrated, a warning of what could occur in the relatively near future if the heating of the planet continues unchecked.”