Antarctica ice cap grows as glaciers elsewhere melt

As glaciers from Greenland to Kilimanjaro recede at record rates, the central ice cap of Antarctica has steadily grown for the past 11 years, partially offsetting rising seas due to the melt waters of global warming, researchers said Thursday.

The vast East Antarctic Ice Sheet – a 2-mile-thick wasteland of ice larger than Australia – increased in mass every year between 1992 and 2003 due to additional annual snowfall, an analysis of satellite radar measurements showed.

“It is an effect that has been predicted as a likely result of climate change,” said David Vaughan, an independent expert on the ice sheets at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England.

In a region known for the lowest temperatures recorded on Earth, it normally is too cold to snow across the 2.7 million squares miles of the ice sheet. Any additional annual snowfall in East Antarctica, therefore, is almost certainly due to warmer temperatures, four experts on Antarctica said.