Antarctica

A Global Meltdown

- Viviana Puello

Glacial melting is sounding the alarm of global warming in Antarctica, one of the world's most rapidly warming areas over the past fifty years. Antarctica has experienced air temperature increases of 3°C in the Antarctic Peninsula. Studies show that the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is warming at a higher speed than the global ocean as a whole.

Researchers suggest that the situation has reached a critical point where glacial melting will accelerate and become irreversible. Nasa's study found that Thwaites glacier could probably flow into the sea and generate a fifty centimeters rise in sea level. Other glaciers are in a similar situation.

Global warming is making significant changes to both living and physical environments. The permafrost, which had initially been resilient to warming in the Pole region, is now starting to melt. The measurements confirm that some areas are melting ten times more rapidly than ever before known.