Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 3.10
An Antarctic snow ake. (Credit: Rob Webster)
Antarctica is the highest, coldest and windiest place on Earth. The
Antarctic ice sheet has an average thickness of around 1800m, its maximum
ice depth reaching more than 4770m. On the coasts, thick platforms of ice
s largest ice shelves. They can
reach hundreds of thousands of kilometres square in the Weddell Sea (the
Ronne
flow onto the ocean surface, forming the world
'
Filchner ice shelf) or in the Ross Sea (the Ross Ice Shelf). The thickness
of these ice shelves ranges from ~100 to ~1000m. The total volume of the ice
sheet is estimated at 30million km 3 , representing 80% of terrestrial freshwater.
This amount of ice exerts an enormous pressure on the continental crust, pushing
itdown.Totheeast,thelargecontinentalice sheet mostly stands above sea level.
By contrast, the smaller West Antarctic ice sheet lies below sea level, and is
therefore called a maritime ice sheet. In order to visualise the global signi
-
cance
of the Antarctic ice sheet, one can calculate the global sea-level rise that would
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