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Antarctica's Ice Flow Fully Mapped For the First Time
tvlinux writes "Antarctica is a big continent, so mapping all of its ice flow isn't exactly a piece of cake. But for the first time scientists have been able to get the complete picture of the southernmost continent's ice flow, from the South Pole to the shoreline. From the article: '"This is like seeing a map of all the oceans' currents for the first time. It's a game changer for glaciology," said Eric Rignot of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the University of California (UC), Irvine. Rignot is lead author of a paper about the ice flow published online Thursday in Science Express. "We are seeing amazing flows from the heart of the continent that had never been described before."'"
Oh, there's enough ice there it will take several thousand years for all of it to melt. But the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could slide into the ocean pretty fast which would be a problem. A collapse if the WAIS would amount to over 15 feet of sea level rise.