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New research published in Nature Climate Change has revealed how strengthening winds on the opposite side of Antarctica, up to 6000kms away, drive the high rate of ice melt along the West Antarctic Peninsula. The path of the Kelvin waves that interact with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and push warmer waters under  the ice shelves of the West Antarctic Peninsula. These waves are generated by strengthening winds,  6000km away, on the opposite side of the Antarctic [Credit: Ryan Holmes/NCI] Researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science found that the winds in East Antarctica can generate sea-level disturbances that propagate around the continent at almost 700 kilometers per hour via a type of ocean wave known as a Kelvin wave. When these waves encounter the steep underwater topography off the West Antarctic Peninsula they push warmer water towards the large ice shelves along the shoreline. The warm Antarctic Circumpolar Current passes quite close to the co

A one trillion tonne iceberg -- one of the biggest ever recorded -- has calved away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica, after a rift in the ice, monitored by the Swansea University-led MIDAS project, finally completed its path through the ice. Animation of the growth of the crack in the Larsen C ice shelf, from 2006 to 2017, as recorded  by NASA/USGS Landsat satellites [Credit: NASA/USGS Landsat] The calving occurred sometime between Monday 10th July and Wednesday 12th July, when a 5,800 square km section of Larsen C finally broke away. The final breakthrough was detected in data from NASA's Aqua MODIS satellite instrument, which images in the thermal infrared at a resolution of 1km. The iceberg, which is likely to be named A68, weighs more than a trillion tonnes. Its volume is twice that of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes. The iceberg weighs more than a trillion tonnes (1,000,000,000,000 metric tonnes), but it was already floating before it calved away so has no immedi

New research published in Nature Climate Change has revealed how strengthening winds on the opposite side of Antarctica, up to 6000kms away, drive the high rate of ice melt along the West Antarctic Peninsula. The path of the Kelvin waves that interact with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and push warmer waters under  the ice shelves of the West Antarctic Peninsula. These waves are generated by strengthening winds,  6000km away, on the opposite side of the Antarctic [Credit: Ryan Holmes/NCI] Researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science found that the winds in East Antarctica can generate sea-level disturbances that propagate around the continent at almost 700 kilometers per hour via a type of ocean wave known as a Kelvin wave. When these waves encounter the steep underwater topography off the West Antarctic Peninsula they push warmer water towards the large ice shelves along the shoreline. The warm Antarctic Circumpolar Current passes quite close to the co

A one trillion tonne iceberg -- one of the biggest ever recorded -- has calved away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica, after a rift in the ice, monitored by the Swansea University-led MIDAS project, finally completed its path through the ice. Animation of the growth of the crack in the Larsen C ice shelf, from 2006 to 2017, as recorded  by NASA/USGS Landsat satellites [Credit: NASA/USGS Landsat] The calving occurred sometime between Monday 10th July and Wednesday 12th July, when a 5,800 square km section of Larsen C finally broke away. The final breakthrough was detected in data from NASA's Aqua MODIS satellite instrument, which images in the thermal infrared at a resolution of 1km. The iceberg, which is likely to be named A68, weighs more than a trillion tonnes. Its volume is twice that of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes. The iceberg weighs more than a trillion tonnes (1,000,000,000,000 metric tonnes), but it was already floating before it calved away so has no immedi