ABOVE: An iceberg fracturing off the Antarctic Peninsula
JEROEN INGELS
This month, Arctic sea ice shrank to its second lowest level on record, while the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the most rapidly warming places on the planet. The calving of the world’s largest iceberg—a 1-trillion-ton mass called A-68 that split from the Larsen C ice shelf in 2017—is one of almost a dozen significant ice shelf loss events at the southern pole in the past few decades. Under a “business as usual” climate scenario, in which carbon emissions continue unabated, it is estimated that the melting of Antarctic ice will cause global sea level to rise up to three times as much as it did in the last century.
To better understand how climate change is shaping Antarctic ecosystems, the National Science Foundation sponsored a workshop in November 2017, bringing together almost 40 interdisciplinary researchers to assess the current state ...
