The 27 January marks the first time the Antarctica mainland was seen with human eyes. Two hundred years later and it approaches a tipping point of irreversible glacial melt.
Andy Smith, science leader of the Ice Dynamics & Palaeoclimate Team at the British Antarctic Survey , says the threat Antarctica faces because of climate change is considerable.."Warmer ocean waters increase melting where the ice meets the sea."
But the question of how far we can push Antarctica before it passes a point of no-return is up for debate. Some studies suggest parts of the continent may have already breached that barrier. According to Cuffey, there are strong arguments that these systems have already retreated and thinned to the point that reinforcing feedback processes have been initiated.
To take one of the biggest uncertainties as an example, predictions of future global sea-level rise related to polar ice sheet melt have, so far, proven to be an underestimate."There is general agreement that once a particular tipping point in the ice sheet is passed, there are no possible mitigation measures that could then stop the ice sheet from retreating," he said.
That is not to say we won't notice an impact. Rising sea levels will be one of the most noticeable effects worldwide, say glaciologists.per year but it can take decades for the effects of warming to be fully realized. The environment we have today reflects climate changes that took place 50 to 100 years ago.
As for Antarctica, ice melt and glacial retreat may lead to a proliferation of invasive species, causing havoc to the existing ecosystem, while a surge of freshwater from the ice sheets into nearby oceans could disrupt marine environments.While the evidence can seem disheartening, there are measures we can take to slow down the process and reduce the likelihood of any worst-case outcomes.
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