“What happens in Antarctica doesn't stay in Antarctica”

The new findings were presented by more than 1,500 scientists participating in the 11th Conference of the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research in Pucon, Chile. Experts presented the results of their research, using data from weather stations and satellite data that have been collected for about 40 years. The main topic of the debate was an attempt to answer the question: has Antarctica reached a critical point or a point of accelerated and irreversible loss of sea ice from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet?

“There is uncertainty about whether current observations indicate a temporary decline in sea ice,” said Liz Keller, a paleoclimate expert at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, who led a session on predicting and detecting tipping points on Earth's southernmost continent.

According to estimates NASA The Antarctic ice sheet has enough ice to raise average global sea level by up to 58 meters. At the same time, studies have shown that about a third of the world's population lives below 100 meters below sea level.

The Chilean conference participants sounded the alarm that the pace of change in Antarctica is unprecedented. “We can see the same increase in carbon dioxide for thousands of years, and now it's happened in a hundred years,” Keller noted. Glaciologist and head of the Chilean Antarctic Institute Gino Casassa said that current estimates suggest sea levels will rise by four meters by 2100 if CO2 emissions continue to rise.

“What happens in Antarctica doesn’t stay in Antarctica,” Casassa said, adding that global atmospheric, oceanic and weather patterns are linked to the continent.

As he emphasized, “Antarctica is not just an iceberg isolated from the rest of the planet that has no influence on it.”

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