What’s behind the surprising growth of one Antarctic ice sheet?

We often hear about polar ice melting due to global warming, but one Antarctic ice shelf has grown in the last 20 years, new research has found.

Scientists say that changing wind and sea ice patterns have led the eastern Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet to expand since the start of the 21st century. This followed two decades of ice retreat.

A team of researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Newcastle in the UK and Canterbury University in New Zealand found that floating ice shelves on the eastern Antarctic Peninsula grew between 2000 and 2019.

They used satellite measurements dating back 60 years, as well as ocean and atmospheric records to get a detailed understanding of ice conditions in this 1,400 kilometre-long peninsula. Their results showed that 85 per cent of the ice shelf in this area grew since the early 2000s.

Ice shelves are floating sections of ice that are attached to land-based ice sheets. They help protect the inland ice from eroding and breaking off into the ocean.

During their 2019 expedition to Antarctica, the researchers noted that “parts of the ice shelf coastline were at their most advanced position since satellite records began in the early 1960s,” says expedition chief scientist and study co-author Professor Julian Dowdeswell.

The expansion follows the rapid melting of ice in the second half of the 20th Century, including the collapse of the Larsen A and B ice shelves in 1995 and 2002. This contributed to rising global sea levels and warnings of flooding in coastal areas.

Global sea levels have risen around 21-24 centimetres since 1880, with about a third of that happening in the last 25 years. Rising waters threaten infrastructure, homes and livelihoods on coastlines around the world – eight out