20050202_AN

Source: BBC News

URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4228411.stm#1

Date: 02/02/2005

Event: If Antarctica "melted completely, that could raise global sea levels dramatically"

People:

• Dr Catarina Cardoso: Head of Climate Change, WWF-UK
• Christine McGourty: BBC Reporter
• Professor Chris Rapley: Director of British Antarctic Survey

Christine McGourty: A pristine frozen wilderness. But this is a continent undergoing dramatic changes, and what happens here could affect us all. So, how is the climate changing in the Antarctic? Scientists have been studying the Pine Island Glacier. The floating ice there is breaking up. As a result, glaciers on land spill into the sea faster than expected, causing sea levels to rise.

Chris Rapley: Humans are very adaptable. I think if the climate changes, what really matters is the rate of change. If significant things happen, if sea level rises on time scales of 20 - 50 years - which it might do, we don't know but it might do - then that's when society has a big problem coping.

Christine McGourty: The continent has already lost vast stretches of ice in the last 50 years. If it melted completely, that could raise global sea levels dramatically. And, at the other end of the world, the Arctic is feeling the heat, too. Icebergs are breaking up faster than ever. A new study has found that if the planet warms by just 2 degrees, the Arctic will warm up by three times that amount. Polar bears could become extinct.

Catarina Cardoso: If the sea ice disappears or starts melting, they're going to have, basically, less space to hunt. Also there will be less space in terms of breeding space, because that's very much where the female polar bears tend to go. So that's the second problem with it.

Christine McGourty: Back in the Antarctic, it's the penguins that are losing their habitat. Some species are already in decline. And scientists are warning that unless we can stop climate change, the effects world-wide could be devastating. Christine McGourty, BBC News.