Talks opened in Australia on Monday to create two vast marine sanctuaries aimed at protecting the pristine wilderness of Antarctica with Russia and China key to whether they succeed. The fate of the plans to shield critical areas of ocean around the frozen continent is in the hands of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) at its annual meeting in Hobart, which runs into October 28. Attempts to create both an Australian-backed East Antarctic scheme and a US-New Zealand bid for a protected zone in the Ross Sea have been repeatedly blocked due to a lack of consensus. Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-10-russia-key-antarctic-marine-sanctuaries.html#jCp "Commitments for almost four million square kilometres of MPAs have been made in the past weeks. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Proposed Antarctic sanctuaries Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-10-russia-key-antarctic-marine-sanctuaries.html#jCp
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-res...as-ice-shelves-are-melting-rapidly-1477407600 New Research Finds Antarctica’s Ice Shelves Are Melting Rapidly Melting ice shelves could add to rising sea levels, according to scientists Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!ENLARGE The Crosson Ice Shelf (center) and Mount Murphy (foreground) in Antarctica. Ice shelves are sensitive to changing water temperatures. The photograph was taken during an IceBridge mission on October 23, 2012. PHOTO: JOHN SONNTAG By DANIELA HERNANDEZ Oct. 25, 2016 11:00 a.m. ET 176 COMMENTS The ice that hangs off Antarctica’s western edge is melting at a faster clip than it is being replenished, according to new research published Tuesday. Researchers estimate that between 2002 and 2009, Smith Glacier lost roughly between 980 and 1,600 feet of ice thanks to increased melting at its so-called grounding zones, regions where ice goes from being on land to floating on water, creating what looks like a shelf. Understanding how ice shelves are changing is crucial to predicting sea-level rise, said Ala Khazendar, a polar scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the study’s first author. Sea-level rise is already affecting coastal cities, like Miami, and scientists think the problem will only worsen globally as the planet warms.
