Sentences with phrase «of the ice sheet»

Now assume that the rate of melting of those ice sheets is doubling every 5 or 10 years, as the sparse data seems to imply.

Surely the issue relating to the mass of the ice sheet in the case of on - land ice sheets is precipitation as well as temperature.

The implication was that it could become atmospheric CO2, should parts of the ice sheet melt.

In fact, there are now well over 150 individual assessments of ice sheet mass balance based on measurements acquired by at least 15 different satellite missions.

«The study itself is about steady state conditions that would exist at the bottom of the ice sheet for many many millions of years,» he said.

Around the edges of the ice sheet, though, there is accelerated melting.

The data from this equipment revealed details of the interactions between ocean water and the base of the ice sheet.

And it is inspiring to see such progress being made in the detail with which models of ice sheet dynamics and other forms of change can be applied to the moderately far future.

If currents carried the warm water beneath this ice, it potentially could trigger the collapse of an ice sheet that scientists estimate holds enough water to raise the sea level five meters.

As the ice margin retreats, the area of ice sheet exposed to ocean water grows.

These vary as sea level changes from growth or loss of ice sheets through the ice age cycles.

The reason for the retreat of the ice sheets remains elusive, however.

Slow feedbacks, such as change of ice sheet area and climate - driven changes of greenhouse gases, are not included.

Deep ocean water, which is relatively warm, has been melting portions of the ice sheet at its base.

The mass balance of the ice sheets continues to change over time.

The shallow curve for the pace at which seas will rise reflects the persistent questions surrounding the behavior of ice sheets in a warming climate.

And it would «seem» that one of these nasty surprises is an already observed faster than usual rate of ice sheet and methane response.

Many of the discovered valleys also stretch farther into the interior of the ice sheet than previous measurements.

How and when is fresh water added to the margins of ice sheets?

We don't have much of these ice sheets anymore.

Climate change has had an impact on the top of the ice sheet.

By «instantaneous» he meant an advance of ice sheets over the course of a mere few thousand years, which was roughly ten times faster than most scientists had imagined.

While this vast ice sheet is relatively stable, the ice shelves — the portions of the ice sheet that extend into the surrounding seas — are fast disappearing.

Another promising approach involves combining physics, statistical modeling and computing to derive sound projections for the future of ice sheets.

The high - elevation center of an ice sheet also plays a role in driving a peculiar kind of local weather created by the ice sheet itself.

Understanding the behaviour of ice sheets in the past, in different climate settings, can help us understand what might happen in the future.

The latter group then could have moved south of the ice sheets at a later date.

The new study highlights the key role of processes occurring on small geographic scales in determining how global climate change can affect the stability of ice sheets.

Furthermore, current models are unable to adequately simulate the physics of ice sheet decay and certain aspects of the natural carbon and nitrogen cycles.

But in the middle of an ice sheet, the ice remains close to the Ice Age temperatures at which it formed.

As climate continues to warm, more glaciers will accelerate, and the mass balance will become increasingly negative, regardless of the evolution of the ice sheet interior.

While it's important to know the volume of an ice sheet - or how much space it takes up - it can change without affecting the amount of ice that is present.

However, we do not know the functional form of ice sheet response to a large persistent climate forcing.

A loss of mass from the ice sheet causes nearby ocean levels to fall as the mass and gravity of the ice sheet decreases.

But now everything's fixed, and we're getting good cores that will help reveal the history of the ice sheet that last covered this bay.

The continental - scale behavior of the ice sheets depends upon difficult - to - model physics taking place at a much smaller scale.

New research shows that small fluctuations in the sizes of ice sheets during the last ice age were enough to trigger abrupt climate change.

The weight of the upper layers of the ice sheet causes the deep ice to spread, causing the annual ice layers to become thinner and thinner with depth.