What Antarctica’s Incredible “Growing” Icepack Really Means
A NASA study has climate scientists up in arms; here’s what it means.
Are the Antarctic’s ice sheets shrinking or growing? And what does that mean for global sea-level rise?
Those questions are being hotly debated by the world’s climate scientists as global leaders prepare for the UN climate talks in Paris at the end of this month. Now, a new study by a team of NASA climate scientists has sparked controversy by reporting that “Antarctica is actually gaining ice.”
Scientists concluded in the Journal of Glaciology that the loss of glacier mass in Antarctica’s western region is being offset by thickening of glaciers on the continent’s eastern interior, which has experienced increased snowfall. The result: A net gain of about 100 billion tons of ice per year, according to the report.
That
