THE worst fears about Antarctica’s melting glaciers have been confirmed. The first comprehensive survey of glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula shows a widespread retreat that may be more evidence of global warming.
The mountainous Antarctic Peninsula stretches north from the icy continent towards South America. Its 244 glaciers dump their ice into the sea as icebergs. Now a team from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge reports in Science (vol 308, p 541) that 87 per cent of the glaciers have retreated over the past 50 years. The team looked at 2000 aerial and satellite photographs of the…
