The ice is melting

In yet another example of global warming, the underside of Antarctica’s huge Pine Island Glacier is melting at an alarming rate.

Researchers from Monterey’s Naval Postgraduate School used multiple sensors, deployed through 1,640 feet of glacial ice, during a recent two-month-long expedition aimed at determining how fast the glacier is being melted by warming water, according to The Christian Science Monitor.

The 31-mile-long Pine Island Glacier—“the longest and fastest-changing glacier on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet”—is thinning by a rate of about 2 1/2 miles per year, contributing to ongoing sea-level rise.

“Intensive melting under the Pine Island ice shelf … could potentially lead to the speed-up and ultimate break-up of the ice shelf,” said David Holland, a mathematics professor at New York University’s Center for Atmosphere Ocean Science.