East Antarctica, Long Stable, Is Now Losing Ice

[LuckyTheDog]

Wait... Sean Hannity says global warming is a big hoax. I am SO confused!

:o

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1942828,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

While the earth has been warming overall, the giant East Antarctic ice sheet — which holds about five times as much ice as West Antarctica and Greenland combined — has actually been growing in size. That's because East Antarctica is far too cold, even in summer, for any appreciable melting to happen. And since a warmer world means more precipitation, any extra snow that falls on East Antarctica stays there indefinitely.

Or at least, that's how things have gone until recently. But a new study in the journal Nature Geoscience suggests that this growth spurt may have come to an end. Starting in about 2006, says lead author Jianli Chen of the Center for Space Research at the University of Texas at Austin, East Antarctica started declining, just like the world's other great ice sheets. "The amount right now isn't very big, but the trend is alarming," he says.