(MENAFN) Antarctica, once seen as a bastion of frozen stability, is now showing alarming signs of rapid ice decline, driven by escalating global warming. Scientists report increasing surface melt, faster glacier movement, and shrinking sea ice—trends strikingly similar to those observed in Greenland, according to multiple media sources.

A recent study published in Nature Geoscience reveals that warming temperatures at the South Pole are causing significant ice loss in areas previously considered resistant to swift climate impacts, the Ars Technica website detailed.

“We thought it was just going to take ages for any kind of climate impacts to be seen in Antarctica,” said Ruth Mottram, the study’s lead author and ice researcher at the Danish Meteorological Institute. “And that’s really not true.”

Spanning 5.4 million square miles, Antarctica’s vast ice sheet contains enough frozen water to elevate global sea levels by an astounding 190 feet (58 meters) if it were to melt completely. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet alone holds ice capable of raising sea levels by over 10 feet.

The collapse of the Larsen B Ice Shelf in 2002, triggered by record-breaking warm summers, marked a pivotal moment in Antarctic climate history.

“We just couldn’t believe the pace at which it happened,” remarked Helen Amanda Fricker of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Since the 1990s, ice loss has surged fourfold as weakening ice shelves have lost their ability to restrain outlet glaciers.

“At some point, there’s no stopping it anymore,” Fricker warned.

Mottram highlighted a particularly intense 2022 heatwave that penetrated deep into the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, a region once considered the most stable, driven by powerful atmospheric rivers.

Satellite data now confirm that warming ocean currents are breaching the continent’s protective circumpolar current, delivering heat to the bases of ice shelves and accelerating melting.

Eric Rignot, professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, drew parallels to Greenland’s experience, emphasizing: “There is no new physics in Greenland that does not apply to Antarctica and vice versa.”

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