Glacier melt indicates global warming changes

[senorpepr]

A team of international scientists has returned to Australia from a three-month expedition to Antarctic with some alarming findings on climate change.

The scientists discovered a key glacier at in the middle of the Southern Ocean is melting much faster than expected.
The 28 scientists and support staff have arrived back in Australia after 10 weeks on remote Heard Island.
On the north-east coast of the Island, glaciologists were disturbed to find Brown Glacier is melting at a faster rate than before.

In the 50 years to 2000, the glacier consistently lost half-a-meter of ice each year.
Glaciologist Doug Thost, from the Australian Antarctic Division, says in the years since then it has been melting at almost four times that rate.

"The surface has been lowering just on average about two, just over two meters every year," Dr Thost said.
"It's a four-fold increase in that lowering rate."
Dr Thost says it is an early warning sign of global warming changes that scientists can expect further south.