After Decades of Losing Ice, Antarctica Is Now Hemorrhaging It
Global warming has already cost the continent 2.7 trillion tons of mass.
Climate change has not been kind to Antarctica. According to a comprehensive new study, global warming has already bled the frigid continent, which is larger than Europe, of about 2.7 trillion tons of ice. This enormous amount of ice has already raised global sea levels by as much as a centimeter.
This outflow seems to be increasing: Almost half of all losses have occurred in just the last five years. And the continent is hemorrhaging that mass in a way that will lead to especially high sea levels on the East Coast of the United States.
“The continent is causing sea levels to rise faster today than at any time in the, a leader of the new study and a professor of Earth observation at the University of Leeds, in a statement.
