Subject:  07/95 Melting ice caps.GIF
Author:  British Antarctic Survey
Uploaded By:  CHansen598
Date:  6/7/1995

File:  SciCit03.GIF (155165 bytes) 
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From the July 1995 issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

Science and the Citizen

It's Melting, It's Melting

This 640 x 331 pixel image shows that Antarctica is heating up, and the evidence is in the ice--or at least in its melt. One satellite image from this past January (left) shows the spidery-looking James Ross Island surrounded by water (top right): ever since the first maps were made 100 years ago, it has been connected to the Antarctic peninsula by an ice shelf. The image also shows the peninsula, composed of a chain of mountains (lower left to upper right), surrounded by dark patches of sea; the gargantuan Larsen ice shelf appears at the lower left. A satellite image taken shortly after, in February (right), documented further changes. The ice shelf has retreated; a 50-mile-long iceberg has calved; and the northernmost part of the shelf, just above the center of the picture, has disappeared, creating a plume of ice rubble.