What's Going On With Antarctica's Glaciers?

Both Antarctica and Greenland are very large, very cold and home to plenty of frozen territory. But there are certain other ways in which the two areas are becoming even more like one another — and that’s cause for alarm among many scientists. “Recent changes observed in Antarctica now show that it is much more Greenland-like than earlier prognoses,” wrote the authors of a recently-published paper titled “The Greenlandification of Antarctica.”

If your first reaction upon seeing that title is to wonder what Greenlandification means, the paper’s authors have helpfully provided a definition: “he transition of a cold, stable ice mass with low or negligible surface melt to one more similar to present-day Greenland, where a warmer atmosphere and ocean drive increased surface and submarine melt and sustained calving activity.” In other words, a very cold place that’s quickly growing warmer, with chaotic effects as a result.

The paper’s authors note one key difference between Antarctica and Greenland: the role that ice shelves play surrounding much of the former region. That could result in more stability, though the authors also point out that the ice shelves are at risk of both “collapse driven by ocean driven melt on the underside” and “hydrofracturing due to the expansion and drainage of supraglacial lakes.”

What might be most notable about the findings described in the paper is the speed at which the effects of climate change are being felt in the planet’s southernmost continent. “We thought it was just going to take ages for any kind of climate impacts to be seen in Antarctica,” explained one of the paper’s authors, Ruth Mottram, to Inside Climate News’ Bob Berwyn. “And that’s really not true.”

Traveling to Antarctica With a Clean Conscience

It’s more important than ever that we keep the White Continent as wild and pristine as possible

As for what effects the melting of ice in Antarctica might have elsewhere in the world, Rhett Allain explored that very subject in 2020 for WIRED. The result of Allain’s calculations pointed to a massive increase in sea levels worldwide, a figure somewhere between 200 and 290 feet. It’s a sobering statistic surrounded by numerous alarming global trends.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…