Antarctica ice sheet melting makes global news headlines

Research demonstrating the melting of Antarctica’s biggest glaciers at their base, contributing to a speeding up of global sea level rise, has received worldwide attention.

The study, led by scientists from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) at the University of Leeds, was published in Nature Geoscience on Monday 2 April 2018. (See press release.)

Media coverage of the paper has been widespread, with pieces in The Guardian, Washington Post, IFLScience, The Times, Independent, iNews, Russia Today, Eco Watch, Quartz, BBC News, Science Daily, The Telegraph, Carbon Brief (by lead author Dr Hannes Konrad) and print coverage in The Sun and Daily Mirror.

It has also been featured on Channel 4 News, with Prof Andy Shepherd of the School of Earth and Environment and the Priestley Centre being interviewed.  He explained that a 2,000-3,000 km stretch of Antarctica’s coastline is affected, with all of the very large glaciers melting and retreating.

“They are doubling and tripling in speed over the past five to 15 years,” he said. “They are the biggest signal of global sea level rise of the Earth’s cryosphere, all the frozen ice on the planet.”

Further international news coverage has featured in Daily Mail , Newsweek, The Weather Channel, Huffington Post UK, Scientific American, L’Express (in French), Duetsche Welle, BT (in Danish), CNN (in Turkish), NTV (in Turkish), Aljazeera, Bol (in Portuguese) and International Business Times India. 

Photo: Lindsay Stringer