| Summary: | Given that Antarctica contains more ice and snow than all the rest of the world's glaciers and snow fields combined, there are obvious concerns about what would happen to the earth's sea level if some or all Of Antarctica's ice melted. Calculations show that the sea level would rise by up to 70 metres. With the global warming that has occurred over recent decades, researchers are urgently trying to discover how likely this is to lead to a partial or complete collapse of one or both Of Antarctica's ice sheets, and how quickly this would be likely to happen. Opinion is presently divided on whether such a collapse is imminent, due mainly to inadequate theoretical models of the behaviour of the ice sheets. In this review I will discuss the physical features of the ice sheets, the current state of modelling their stability, and relevant empirical data on their stability. Given that Antarctica contains more ice and snow than all the rest of the world's glaciers and snow fields combined, there are obvious concerns about what would happen to the earth's sea level if some or all Of Antarctica's ice melted. Calculations show that the sea level would rise by up to 70 metres. With the global warming that has occurred over recent decades, researchers are urgently trying to discover how likely this is to lead to a partial or complete collapse of one or both Of Antarctica's ice sheets, and how quickly this would be likely to happen. Opinion is presently divided on whether such a collapse is imminent, due mainly to inadequate theoretical models of the behaviour of the ice sheets. In this review I will discuss the physical features of the ice sheets, the current state of modelling their stability, and relevant empirical data on their stability.
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