May 13, 2014 — Years from now, when scientists look for a precise moment when the Earth’s climate began to inexorably change, they may mark this week.
Two separate studies Monday appeared to confirm a fear scientists have harbored for decades: major glaciers in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are irrevocably destabilized, and their slide into the ocean will swell the world’s oceans by four feet.
Glaciers in West Antarctica “have passed the point of no return,” said Eric Rignot, the author of a study from the University of California at Irvine and NASA published in Geophysical Research Letters. It “will be a major contributor to sea level rise in the decades and centuries to come.”
Thomas P. Wagner, another NASA researcher who studies polar ice, was equally grave in an interview with the New York Times. “This is really happening,” he said. “There’s nothing to stop it now. But you are still limited by the physics of how fast the ice can flow."
Read the full story from The Washington Post