Antarctica

ISSUES

Antarctica is made up of two major regions - East and West Antarctica - naturally separated by the 3,000 km-long Transarctic Mountains. East Antarctica is comprised of a 10 million square-kilometre ice dome. West Antarctica is lower and smaller representing a fifth of the continent’s land area with the Antarctic Peninsula accounting for a further 2%. The ice sheet flows down to the ocean to form ice shelves, floating platforms of ice with a cumulated surface area of 1.5 million km2. These ice shelves in turn flow and break up, calving tabular icebergs.
Monitoring climate change
Global warming is causing higher melting speeds and increasing snow falls in Antarctica. Findings from studies differ regarding the scope of the phenomenon, but suggest that the ice in Antarctica is retreating. In January 2008, NASA announced that 190 billion tons of ice were lost in 2006, mainly in West Antarctica, a region which appears more vu...

NEWS

Sorry, most of the news are only available in French language for the moment.

FRANCE - PARIS - Un gigantesque iceberg de la taille du Luxembourg s'est détaché du glacier Mertz, en antarctique de l'Est, ce...

AUSTRALIA - New Scientist reports changing weather patterns between Antarctica and Australia may be a consequence of a...

NORWAY - OSLO - Greenpeace called on Tuesday for a moratorium on industrial activity on the Arctic, a region said to be rich in...

Univers GoodPlanet par Netvibes

DEBATES

Is depletion of the ozone layer the principal cause of climate change?

David Fahey

Ozone depletion itself is not the principal cause of climate change. However, because ozone absorbs solar radiation and is a...

Ozone hole alters Antarctic sea life

The ozone hole over Antarctica could be having a bigger...

Chemists poke holes in ozone theory

Reaction data of crucial chloride compounds called into...

FOCUS

Winners and losers

Some people are going to throw their hat into the ring for global warming, if it remains moderate. Indeed, the climate in certain inhospitable zones will get milder. Unproductive land will become farmable. Soil...

VIDEOS

18/09/2009

Bien que peu accessible aux hommes, l’Arctique disparaît sous l’effet du...

18/12/2008

La NASA présente une animation à partir de données satellitaires pour...

GREEN TIPS

A new wind turbine is born

The famous French designer Philippe Starck has just created (May 2008) six domestic wind turbines which cost...

INDICATORS

National biodiversity index
Threatened ecosystems

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