Sentences with phrase «ice sheets collapse rapidly»
Although the heat source isn't a new or increasing threat to the West Antarctic ice sheet, it may help explain why the ice sheet collapsed rapidly in an earlier era of rapid climate change, and why it is so unstable today.
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When scientists talk about the «collapse» of an ice sheet, they mean irreversible, rapidly increased rates of recession.
It is well known that ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula have collapsed on several occasions in the last couple of decades, that ice shelves in West Antarctica are thinning rapidly, and that the large outlet glaciers that drain the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS) are accelerating.
The Arctic sea ice is rapidly disappearing with a time scale of years rather than decades, and it is becoming increasingly likely that the with the Greenland ice sheet will also collapse rapidly.
In any case, there are no massive ice sheets going to rapidly collapse at any time in the readily foreseeable future.
The question relates to a major collapse of the sheet sufficient to free many cubic kilometers of ice into the sea where it would melt more rapidly.
The heat source isn't new or increasing, but may help explain why the ice sheet collapsed so rapidly in an earlier area of climate change and remains unstable.
«We believe that the west ice sheet is unstable, that it has been rapidly disintegrating in geological terms for the last 6000 years, and that is is possible that in 300 years the west sheet could collapse,» said Hughes.