Finalist
Maria Stenzel
Freelance
"Investigating Climate Change in Antarctica"
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Getz ice shelf is bathed in "sea smoke" on a summer day in the Amundsen Sea. The 1300 foot thick ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea are thinning by about 16 feet a year, as the ocean melts them from the underside. In contrast, the huge and stable Ross Ice Shelf is thinning by only a few millimeters a year.
Ice shelves are the floating extensions of glaciers, which flow from the interior of the continent towards the coastlines. Ice shelves act as buttresses, slowing down the delivery of glacial ice to the sea. If ice shelves disintegrate, the glaciers which feed into them will speed up, and sea level will rise.
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