What’s happening in the Antarctic? Climate change is having its most powerful effect in the whole world, but mostly in the Antarctic, you may have heard something about the ice in Antarctic melting. According to The Cryosphere a kind of fight between two glaciers, the Kohler East and the Kohler West, is happening in the Antarctic. This research was led by some scientists from Leeds University and they were able to contrast this data thanks to observation satellites.
It wasn’t enough to have thiefs in our everyday life, that now elements from nature are stealing each other too. Who would have thought? Let’s see what this fight is all about.
Glaciers, can you really explain what they are?
To make sure you fully understand this article, we should start explaining the key elements here, glaciers.
A glacier is a huge ice mass created when it snows for a long time, could be centuries or millions of years. This snow builds up until it becomes hard ice.
They are paramount for climate change because they contain fresh water, more than 60% of the whole world’s fresh water is in there. They also help with the fresh maintenance of Earth by reflecting the sunlight. However, if they melt, it could mean serious floods because of global warming.
Worrying situation in the Antarctic
In the past years, some scientists have noticed a change in the glaciers, they have been melting faster than usual. This is due to global warming, which makes the Earth reaches hotter temperatures and the ice melts.
This concerns scientist because it could lead to horrible results for our planet Earth and, as a consequence, us.
Ice piracy!
This is a concept that explains in a colloquial way the theft glaciers are experiencing in the Antarctic. So, let’s explain this ice piracy.
Picture two glaciers named Kohler ast and Kohler West. They are one next to the other, but the Kohler East glacier moves faster than the Kohler West one. This allows the Kohler East to steal ice from the other glacier.
This has been going on for the last 18 years! So, you can imagine how much ice this glacier has absorbed, a lot!
Relevance of this theft
This situation is the one that changes the behaviour of both glaciers, which leads to many negative consequences for the environment.
Scientists thought this could happen some day, but not that early, less than 20 years is too much to handle for nature.
Some negative impacts of this ice piracy are the increase of the sea level which would flood some cities near coasts. Also, as we mentioned before, glaciers are crucial for the maintenance of Earth, so if they melt it would affect global climate.
What can we do as society?
We can’t go to the Antarctic and change the world in the same way scientists do, but we can help our planet by incorporating some habits into our daily life.
One thing we can do is reduce the use of plastic and buy other environmentally friendly alternatives. Other things you can start doing are switching off the light when you are not using it, and avoiding as much as possible the use of polluting vehicles. This could be a good way to start doing exercise, which we don’t tend to have much time for.
We are lucky that scientists have advanced technology to notice these issues on time, but we need to be aware of what’s happening in our environment and contribute in a positive way as much as we can. It is true big companies should be the ones taking big action on this issue, but until then… we are the ones who should help the environment.