Scientists track ‘alarming’ melt in Antarctic ice shelves
- The floating frozen platforms surround the continent, helping to protect and stabilise the region’s glaciers by slowing their flow into the ocean
- Large ice shelf melts unleash fresh water into the ocean, which could have knock-on effects
Around 40 per cent of Antarctica’s ice shelves have significantly shrunk over the last 25 years, scientists said on Thursday, in findings the European Space Agency said were “alarming”.
The melting saw 71 of Antarctica’s 162 ice shelves lose mass from 1997 to 2021 – of which 68 posted a “statistically significant” reduction, according to the study published in the journal Science Advances on Thursday.
Scientists said the losses went beyond the ice shelves’ normal fluctuations and added to evidence of how human-caused climate change is affecting Antarctica.
“We expected most ice shelves to go through cycles of rapid, but short-lived shrinking, then to regrow slowly. Instead, we see that almost half of them are shrinking with no sign of recovery,” said lead author Benjamin Davison, research fellow at the University of Leeds.
During the studied period, the scientists found 29 ice shelves gained mass and 62 did not change significantly.