Some areas of Antarctica seeing rapid ice melting

Here is an interesting article by Fen Montaigne on the warming of Antarctica and the melting of Antarctic ice. One would expect that signs of global warming would be most evident at the points with the harshest climates – the hottest areas on earth and the coldest. Especially the coldest.

I have read elsewhere that while significant ice melting is taking place in Antarctica, there are other areas in the continent that are actually getting colder. The author of this article acknowledges this, but claims this phenomenon is due to the “changing atmospheric circulation patterns around Antarctica” that draw cold air from the interior to some coastal areas where new ice is actually forming.

The general claim is that overall temperatures in Antarctica have warmed 1 degree F between 1957 and 2007. Melting of ice in some regions has been accelerated by rising temperatures in ocean currents.

When discussing Antarctica you have to bear in mind that the place is 1.5 times the size of the U.S. including Alaska. That’s a big land mass and a lot of coast. So you would not expect general observations about one area to necessarily hold for others.

Here’s a short excerpt

The fringes of the coldest continent are starting to feel the heat, with the northern Antarctic Peninsula warming faster than virtually any place on Earth. These rapidly rising temperatures represent the first breach in the enormous frozen dome that holds 90 percent of the worlds ic

Read more here…The Warming Of Antarctica: A Citadel Of Ice Begins To Melt