Blog

Global warming has become a real concern as we have witnessed many climate-related catastrophes recently. These include tsunamis, hurricane Sandy and other similar instances in recent past. Scientists have now realized that the West Antarctica is experiencing the fastest increase in temperature.

This has been revealed by a report published in Nature Geoscience. According to this report, between the years 1958 and 2010, Central West Antarctica has undergone a temperature increase of 2.4°C which is far higher than the average temperature increase experienced elsewhere.

Naturally, the region experienced highest amount of heat during the peak melting seasons in summers. Scientists have raised concerns regarding the increasingly higher sea levels which are also a direct result of the melting of ice in different parts of the world.

As per their concerns, the melting of the Ice Sheet in West Antarctica can significantly contribute to increasing the overall sea level. This, in turn, can lead to tsunami-like events in the near future.

However, the recent study stands in contrast to another study about warming in Antarctica. This other study was done back in 2009 and tends to treat the temperature increases in West Antarctica as not very significant. Another study is current under way on a similar subject and scientists hope that they will soon have ample data to accurately gauge what exactly can be the role of a warmer, melting West Antarctica in the coming days.

Source: Nature Geoscience

Courtesy: The Verge

[ttjad keyword=”cloud-storage-drive”]