Sea-levels to be driven higher by warming currents undermining
ice-shelves (Image Caption: The Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite captured this
composite image of Antarctica's ice-covered landscape on January
27, 2009. The surface appears rough where the Transantarctic
Mountains curve in a shallow "s" from the shore of the Ross Sea
to the Ronne Ice Shelf. The Polar Plateau in the center of the
continent is smooth, shaded only by the faint shadow cast by
clouds. The Weddell Sea is textured with chunks of sea ice.
Image Credit: NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team
at NASA GSFC.) Hidden layers of warming oceanic waters, snaking
around the coast of Greenland and Antarctica, could drive
forward the melting of their glaciers faster than previously
predicted. This newly described mechanism, modeled in detail in
a paper in Nature Geoscience, is the latest piece of evidence
making a 3-foot rise in sea-levels - over this coming century -
increasingly certain. The