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Global Sea Level Rise
In February of 1995 we received information over the Internet that a major
segment of ice broke off the Ross Ice Shelf, which caused an enormous
amount of excitement among glaciologists that were in the Antarctic Region,
as was shown in their e-mail exchange. Glaciologists study processes that
happen at glacial speeds: a movement of 1 cm per year may be considered
"lightning speed" for some glacial processes. During this period they were
witnessing an event that occurs only once in a lifetime, so they were
ecstatic to observe these events. The "before" and "after" satellite
photos show that an iceberg the size of Rhode Island had broken from the
ice bridge connecting James Ross Island to the main Antarctic continent.
It now is possible to navigate a ship completely around the island,
something never before possible. A student in the class at the time
calculated that the estimated mass of the ice block would cause global sea
level to rise about a millimeter, which is the equivalent of the rise over
an entire year due to natural warming at the rate of the last 100 years.
PREVIOUS: Altitude-Mass Balance Feedback