How ice sheets collapse—a lesson from the past

http://phys.org/news/2016-02-ice-sheets-collapsea-lesson.html

The article titled as How ice sheets melt a lesson from the past, the article proclaims that ice sheets are melting in Antarctica as a result of an increase in air and ocean temperatures. This is demonstrated through scientific studies, these studies data display that sea level could increase about 60 cm to 3meters by 2300. This is done when ice sheets loose mass and transfer water to the oceans.              

The two most vastly remote places in the world are greenland, and Antarctica, and these two places have the most impact on climate change. As a result of warmer temperatures, melt the ice sheets located in Greenland , as a result water drains off into the ocean. However in Antarctica, temperatures are very cold, ice sheets rarely melt, this rise of sea levels is due to ice streams. Ice streams, are zones of the ice sheet that flow much faster than the surrounding ice that have great masses. The ice streams then discharges ice into the ocean in the form of icebergs that eventually melt.

Data shows that there are approximately 50 major ice streams in Antarctica, this accounts for nearly 90% of the ice that melts in a year. Due to the fact that Ice streams change their positions it makes predicting future changes of ice sheets as a result of ice streams very difficult. On the other hand it is fairly easy to estimate how much additional melting may be a result if air temperatures increase by a couple of degrees.

How can we find more information about ice sheets, a relatively new approach is to look at the past and analyze how ice streams responded to previous periods of climate warming. For example look back to the last ice age when an ice sheet the size of Antarctica disappeared over North America.
The "North American Ice Sheet" engulfed most of Canada, researches used satellite imagery to see land forms that were left behind, as a result were able to map the location of the major ice streams that were once active during this time period. with access to this data scientists were able to see when these streams were turned on and off, and how much ice was melted as a result of the ice streams. Data indicated that larger ice sheets simply have more ice streams.

Why do we care, we care because rising sea level could be very dangerous and catastrophic, there would be many floods in places surrounded by water, which would make that place undesirable to live in and maintain. Some places would just get completely wiped out due to the fact that those places are at sea level right now. These are some of the reasons why we care and that we need to see that the actions we commit which harms the environment will soon end up harming us more 

               

Made by: Rahman Khan