Search Here

As the global warming increases, technically the ice must decrease. However, in Antarctica, the changing weather patterns are resulting in more ice levels, even though in Arctic, the ice seems to be melting. In its recent report, NASA said that rather than shrinking ice shelves in Antarctica, the record levels have actually expanded since the scientists have been using the satellite images for measuring the ice in the area. NASA warns that even though the Antarctica is seemingly expanding, it is not expanding fast enough to balance the melting ice shelves of Arctic at the North Pole, reported Nature World Report. The total ice cap in north pole has been shrinking at alarming rates and Arctic Sea has reached its lowest maximum for the winter in history.

According to NASA, this recently acquired data challenges the findings made by UN's Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change that claims that Antarctica is losing ice mass and is increasing the sea levels. Jay Zwally, lead cryosphere researcher at the agency said, "Our main disagreement is for east Antarctica and the interior of west Antarctica - there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas." The problem, however, is that despite this finding, the sea levels are still rising and it is a mystery where the water is coming from while some parts of Antarctica are still melting at an alarming rate, reports The Indy Channel.

NASA said in a statement that over the years since in 1970, the Arctic has been loosing ice at a very fast pace, as much as 20,800 square miles a year. On the other hand, Antarctica has gained ice mass on an average of 7,300 square miles a year. The interesting thing is that it may be global warming that has caused an increase in the ice mass in Antarctica, says News World Report.