Glaciers that surround it Antarctic fell this year to a record high in a decade. “We have never seen such an extreme situation before, even I have been watching Antarctica for many years, the picture that I saw this year really shocked me,” said Carlos Moffat, an American professor at the University of Delaware who recently returned from the study. Trip to South ocean. Impact of climate change on melting ice follows from annual records of volume that began in 1979. Although the extent of Antarctic sea ice varies dramatically from year to year, making it difficult to conclude about the impact of climate change on its melting, the steady decrease in its volume, which was observed over a period of six years, led scientists to concluded that the increase in waist planet temperature began to affect Antarctica.

“Doomed”

Scientists back in 2014 made ominous predictions about the giant 120-kilometer-wide West Antarctic Glacier, saying it was “doomed to extinction” because since then – a decade ago – global warming has already been visible, and the chances of reversing it are extremely high. limited.

Historical records also show drastic changes in the glaciation of the continent. The Belgian research vessel Belgica was trapped between huge ice for over a year during the “Antarctic summer” 125 years ago. In exactly the same area this year the boat “Polarstern” is sailing on clear water. Professor Karsten Goll, who is on the research vessel Polarstern and first visited Antarctica in 1994, said: “I have never seen so little ice here in my life, the entire frozen continental shelf, an area the size of Germany, has now completely melted. It is alarming how quickly these changes have taken place.”

A complete melting of the Western Glacier could raise sea levels around the planet by at least four meters, according to research.

Antarctica, the southernmost continent on the planet, belongs to no state and is inhabited by very few seasonal explorers. 98% of its surface is covered with ice with an average thickness of 1.9 km. Melting even a small percentage of its ice could be disastrous.