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In 2022, a study narrowed the warming of the Central area of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet between 1959 and 2000 to 0.31 °C (0.56 °F) per decade, and conclusively attributed it to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations caused by human activity. [50] East Antarctica cooled in the 1980s and 1990s, even as West Antarctica warmed (left-hand side).
Surface temperature of Antarctica in winter and summer from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. The climate of Antarctica is the coldest on Earth.The continent is also extremely dry (it is a desert [1]), averaging 166 mm (6.5 in) of precipitation per year.
The Marie Byrd Land makes up a large portion of West Antarctica, consisting of the Area below the Antarctic Peninsula. The Marie Byrd land is a large formation of volcanic rock, characterized by 18 exposed and subglacial volcanoes. 16 of the 18 volcanoes are entirely covered by the antarctic ice sheet. [ 10 ]
Antarctica provides a unique environment for the study of meteorites: the dry polar desert preserves them well, and meteorites older than a million years have been found. They are relatively easy to find, as the dark stone meteorites stand out in a landscape of ice and snow, and the flow of ice accumulates them in certain areas.
The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) lies between 45° west and 168° east longitudinally. It was first formed around 34 million years ago, [3] and it is the largest ice sheet on the entire planet, with far greater volume than the Greenland ice sheet or the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), from which it is separated by the Transantarctic Mountains.
Study of the geology of Antarctica is hampered by the widespread ice cover The bedrock topography of Antarctica (with the ice cover digitally removed), critical to understanding the motion of the continental ice sheets Antarctica without its ice cover. This map does not consider that sea level would rise because of the melted ice, or that the ...
A map of West Antarctica. The total volume of the entire Antarctic ice sheet is estimated at 26.92 million km 3 (6.46 million cu mi), [2] while the WAIS contains about 2.1 million km 3 (530,000 cu mi) in ice that is above the sea level, and ~1 million km 3 (240,000 cu mi) in ice that is below it. [20]