Aquí os pongo un "cortar y pegar"
, pero dejo ir la idea que hay detrás del artículo y que relaciona la posibilidad de que el antártico y su comportamiento estuviesen influenciados por elementos volcánicos debajo de los hielos, mas que por el "calentamiento global". És una relación que he visto a menudo y que no se tendria que infravalorar en ningún caso.
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But will it happen? Scientists divide the Antarctic into three zones:
the
east and west Antarctic ice sheets; the
Peninsula, the
tongue of land which points up towards the southern tip of South America."Everybody thinks that the Antarctic is shrinking due to climate change, but the reality is much more complex," says David Vaughan, a principal investigator at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK.
"Parts of it appear to be thickening as a result of snowfall increases. But the peninsula is thinning at an alarming rate due to warming.
The West Antarctic sheet is also thinning, and we're not sure of the reason why."
Earlier this year, David Vaughan's group published research showing that the vast majority of glaciers along the Peninsula - 87% of the 244 studied - are in retreat.
The rock on which the West Antarctic ice rests is below sea level - and British Antarctic Survey researchers believe the thinning could be due to
the ice sheet melting on its underside.
"It may be that the ocean is warming and that's causing the ice to melt, but there may be other reasons as well; for example,
there's lots of volcanism in that area and so that could change how much heat is delivered to the underside of the ice sheet."
And what of the big monster, the much larger east Antarctic sheet?
"It's so cold that you could raise temperatures by 5-10C without having much of an impact; it's on rock above sea level, so warming in the ocean can't affect it."
Largely insulated from global trends and so big as to generate its own climatic systems, most of Antarctica appears to be immune to the big melt for now, though answers to what is happening in the west are eagerly awaited.
el artículo entero (que habla también del ártico):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4315968.stmy relacionado con vulcanologia antártica, una noticia de muestra, no actual pero de interés:
http://www.terra.com.mx/tecnologia/formato.asp?articuloid=134806&paginaid=1&formatoId=1