Washington: A major ice sheet in western Antarctica is melting, and its collapse is predicted to raise global sea level nearly two feet (61 centimeters), scientists said on Monday. Theories of the ice sheet's impending doom have been circulating for some time, and a study in the journal Science said the process is now expected to take between 200 and 1,000 years.
The thinning of the ice is likely related to global warming, said the study which was funded by Nasa. Airborne radar measurements of the West Antarctic ice sheet allowed scientists to map the un-derlying bedrock of Thwaites Glacier. Scientists used predictive models based on this data to envision how the ice sheet will melt and when, and discovered that such a collapse may be inevitable.
