Ohio State: Ice Sheet Loss Pushing West Antarctica Sideways 0.5 Inches/Year
Billions of tons of ice being lost in West Antarctica each year is causing the region to be pushed sideways by sturdier bedrock in the East Antarctica region.
Satellite measurements of the continent reveal that the West Antarctic bedrock is being pushed sideways at a rate of up to 12 millimeters (about 0.5 inches) each year, according to scientists from The Ohio State University, who are presenting their work this week at the 46th Annual Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Terry Wilson, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State, said that while it may not seem like much, 12 millimeters is quite dramatic when compared to landmass shifts in other parts of the world. Wilson said that confirming the sideways movement was not surprising (after all, vertical movement on the continent has been observed since the 1990s), but she said it was revelatory to observe that the bedrock was moving toward regions in Antarctica with the greatest overall ice loss.
"From computer models, we knew that the bedrock should rebound as the weight of ice on top of it goes away," Wilson said. "But the rock should spread out from the site where the ice used to be. Instead, we see movement toward places where there was the most ice loss."
EDIT
http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/5276/20131211/antarctica-sliding-sideways-due-ice-loss.htm
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