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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]
The Antarctic ice sheet is a continental glacier covering 98% of the Antarctic continent, with an area of 14 million square kilometres (5.4 million square miles) and an average thickness of over 2 kilometres (1.2 mi). It is the largest of Earth's two current ice sheets, containing 26.5 million cubic kilometres (6,400,000 cubic miles) of ice ...
The Thwaites Glacier Tongue, or Western Glacier Tongue (75°0′S106°50′W / 75.000°S 106.833°W) was a narrow, floating part of the glacier, located about 30 mi (48 km) east of Mount Murphy. [ 28 ] It was the first part of the glacier to be mapped, [ 1 ] based on 65,000 aerial photographs collected during Operation Highjump in 1947.
West Antarctica, or Lesser Antarctica, one of the two major regions of Antarctica, is the part of that continent that lies within the Western Hemisphere, and includes the Antarctic Peninsula. It is separated from East Antarcticaby the Transantarctic Mountainsand is covered by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It lies between the Ross Sea(partly ...
Antarctic Peninsula. 69°30′S65°00′W / 69.500°S 65.000°W The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martín in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctica. The Antarctic Peninsula is ...
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet holds enough water to raise sea levels by about 5 meters – more than 16 feet — which would cause devastating flooding in coastal towns and cities around the world.
West Antarctica and Marie Byrd Land have elevations of up to 1.5 to 2 kilometers on the surface of the WAIS. In contrast, East Antarctica has interior elevations on its ice sheet of over 4 kilometers. [38] The West Antarctic Rift System (WARS [39]) that evolved over the last hundred million years, includes all or part of Marie Byrd Land. [40]
The Antarctic continent, located in the Earth 's southern hemisphere, is centered asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle. It is washed by the Southern (or Antarctic) Ocean or, depending on definition, the southern Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. It has an area of more than 14.2 million km 2.