The stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

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 b...

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Main Author: Chappell, Michael
Format: Other/Unknown Material
Language:English
Published: University of Canterbury 2001
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10092/14041
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spelling ftunivcanter:oai:ir.canterbury.ac.nz:10092/14041 2023-05-15T13:55:49+02:00 The stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Chappell, Michael 2001 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/10092/14041 English en eng University of Canterbury http://hdl.handle.net/10092/14041 All Rights Reserved Theses / Dissertations 2001 ftunivcanter 2022-09-08T13:29:43Z 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. Other/Unknown Material Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Ice Sheet University of Canterbury, Christchurch: UC Research Repository Antarctic West Antarctic Ice Sheet
institution Open Polar
collection University of Canterbury, Christchurch: UC Research Repository
op_collection_id ftunivcanter
language English
description 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.
format Other/Unknown Material
author Chappell, Michael
spellingShingle Chappell, Michael
The stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
author_facet Chappell, Michael
author_sort Chappell, Michael
title The stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
title_short The stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
title_full The stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
title_fullStr The stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
title_full_unstemmed The stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
title_sort stability of the west antarctic ice sheet
publisher University of Canterbury
publishDate 2001
url http://hdl.handle.net/10092/14041
geographic Antarctic
West Antarctic Ice Sheet
geographic_facet Antarctic
West Antarctic Ice Sheet
genre Antarc*
Antarctic
Antarctica
Ice Sheet
genre_facet Antarc*
Antarctic
Antarctica
Ice Sheet
op_relation http://hdl.handle.net/10092/14041
op_rights All Rights Reserved
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