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Science 15 November 1991:
Vol. 254. no. 5034, pp. 959 - 963
DOI: 10.1126/science.254.5034.959
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Articles

Changes in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

R. B. ALLEY 1 and I. M. WHILLANS 2

1 Earth System Science Center and Department of Geosciences, The Pennsylvania State University, 306 Deike Building, University Park, PA 16802
2 Byrd Polar Research Center and Department of Geological Sciences, The Ohio State University, 125 South Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210

The portion of the West Antarctic ice sheet that flows into the Ross Sea is thinning in some places and thickening in others. These changes are not caused by any current climatic change, but by the combination of a delayed response to the end of the last global glacial cycle and an internal instability. The near-future impact of the ice sheet on global sea level is largely due to processes internal to the movement of the ice sheet, and not so much to the threat of a possible greenhouse warming. Thus the near-term future of the ice sheet is already determined. However, too little of the ice sheet has been surveyed to predict its overall future behavior.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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Climate Records Covering the Last Deglaciation.
T. Sowers, T. Sowers, and M. Bender (1995)
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R. M. Goldstein, R. M. Goldstein, H. Engelhardt, B. Kamb, and R. M. Frolich (1993)
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Modelling the dynamics of ice sheets.
R. C.A. Hindmarsh (1993)
Progress in Physical Geography 17, 391-412
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Sea level.
C. Woodroffe and C. Woodroffe (1993)
Progress in Physical Geography 17, 359-368
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