The Antarctic ice sheet is one of the two polar ice caps of the Earth. It covers about 98% of the Antarctic continent and is the largest single mass of ice on Earth. It covers an area of almost 14 million square km and contains 30 million cubic km of ice. That is, approximately 61 percent of all fresh water on the Earth is held in the Antarctic ice sheet, an amount equivalent to 70 m of water in the world's oceans. In East Antarctica, the ice sheet rests on a major land mass, but in West Antarctica the bed can extend to more than 2,500 m below sea level. The land in this area would be seabed if the ice sheet were not there.

The icing of Antarctica began with ice-rafting from middle Eocene times about 45.5 million years ago and escalated inland widely during the Eocene-Oligocene extinction event about 34 million years ago; CO₂ levels have been found to be about 760 ppm and had been decreasing from earlier levels in the thousands of ppm. The glaciation was favored by an interval when the Earth's orbit favoured cool summers but Oxygen isotope ratio cycle marker changes were too large to be explained by Antarctic ice-sheet growth alone indicating an ice age of some size. The opening of the Drake Passage may have played a role as well though models of the changes suggest declining CO₂ levels to have been more important.[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v421/n6920/abs/nature01290.html Rapid Cenozoic glaciation of Antarctica induced by declining atmospheric CO₂ Nature 421, 245-249 (16 January 2003) | doi:10.1038; Received 25 July 2002; Accepted 12 November 2002

Ice enters the sheet through precipitation as snow. This snow is then compacted to form glacier ice which moves under gravity towards the coast. Most of it is carried to the coast by fast moving ice streams. The ice then passes into the ocean, often forming vast floating ice shelves. These shelves then melt or calve off to give icebergs that eventually melt.

If the transfer of the ice from the land to the sea is balanced by snow falling back on the land then there will be no net contribution to global sea level. A 2002 analysis of NASA satellite data from 1979-1999 showed that areas of Antarctica where ice was increasing outnumbered areas of decreasing ice roughly 2:1. The general trend shows that a warming climate in the southern hemisphere would transport more moisture to Antarctica, causing the interior ice sheets to grow, while calving events along the coast will increase, causing these areas to shrink. However more recent satellite data, which measures changes in the gravity of the ice mass, suggests that the total amount of ice in Antarctica has begun decreasing in the past few years. Another recent study compared the ice leaving the ice sheet, by measuring the ice velocity and thickness along the coast, to the amount of snow accumulation over the continent. This found that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet was in balance but the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was losing mass. This was largely due to acceleration of ice streams such as Pine Island Glacier. These results agree closely with the gravity changes.

The continent-wide average surface temperature trend of Antarctica is positive and significant at >0.05°C/decade since 1957.West Antarctica has warmed by more than 0.1°C/decade in the last 50 years, and this warming is strongest in winter and spring. Although this is partly offset by fall cooling in East Antarctica, this effect is restricted to the 1980s and 1990s.

Despite this warming total Antarctic sea ice anomalies have been steadily increasing since 1978 (NSIDC (2006)). 2007 showed the largest positive anomaly of sea ice in the southern hemisphere since records have been kept starting in 1979 and 2008 is currently on pace to surpass last years record. The atmospheric warming cannot be directly linked to the recent mass losses in West Antarctica. This mass loss is more likely to be due to increased melting of the ice shelves because of changes in ocean circulation patterns. This in turn causes the ice streams to speed up. The melting and disappearance of the floating ice shelves will only have a small effect on sea level, which is due to salinity differences. The most important consequence of their increased melting is the speed up of the ice streams on land which are buttressed by these ice shelves.

See also

• Geography of Antarctica
• Greenland ice sheet
• Ice sheet
• Ice shelf
• List of Glaciers in Antarctica
• Polar ice
• Ross Ice Shelf
• West Antarctic Ice Sheet
• East Antarctic Ice Sheet

References

1. NASA image by Robert Simmon, based on data from Joey Comiso, GSFC.
2. Sedimentological evidence for the formation of an East Antarctic ice sheet in Eocene/Oligocene time Palaeogeography, palaeoclimatology, & palaeoecology ISSN 0031-0182, 1992, vol. 93, no1-2, pp. 85-112 (3 p.)
3. New CO2 data helps unlock the secrets of Antarctic formation September 13th, 2009
4. Rapid stepwise onset of Antarctic glaciation and deeper calcite compensation in the Pacific Ocean Nature 433, 53-57 (6 January 2005) | doi:10.1038/nature03135; Received 1 September 2004; Accepted 25 October 2004
5. Eocene-Oligocene transition in the Southern Ocean: History of water mass circulation and biological productivity Geology February 1996 v. 24 no. 2 p. 163-166 doi: 10.1130/0091-7613(1996)​024
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8. Peter Noerdlinger, PHYSORG.COM "Melting of Floating Ice Will Raise Sea Level"