Oddly enough, Antarctica is not known, like many other places we covered, for its biodiversity. For the most part it is a cold and nearly uninhabitable block of ice. Unfortunately, this block of ice is melting fast.
As with any area on the blog, Antarctica holds a unique and crucial place in the story of our world. As a consequence, its disappearance would spell the end for millions of people.
An iceberg/glacier in the Pleneau Bay in Antarctica. Forget the practical importance, the sheer beauty of these ice formations should be held in deep regard. (Picture courtesy of http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/)
Antarctica holds 90 percent of the earths freshwater. The ice sheets in the north are the largest mass of ice in the world. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, if the caps were to melt, the result would be a 200 feet rise in sea level.
How do ice caps melt? The Ice caps melt because of rising ocean water temperatures. The warmer sea water pushes itself above the ice and melts it. according to Nasa.gov, the weight of the land ice pushes the continental shelf land inward. This creates a slide for the warm water to slide all the way down.
A recent study of the Pine Glacier Ice shelf, one of the critical ice mass in Antarctica, shows that the ice shelf is melting at a rate as high as 2.36 meters per day.
Sources:
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/the-most-endangered-places-in-the-world/
http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/a/antarctic_ice_sheet.htm
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/warm-ocean-rapidly-melting-antarctic-ice-shelf-from-below/#.VIU-w2NnC0Z
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