Excerpt from nzherald.co.nz
A first-of-its-kind study suggests the worsening melting of Antarctica’s vast ice sheet could directly drive shifts in New Zealand’s local climate patterns.
The new study also indicates massive amounts of meltwater from the frozen continent might counteract climate change-driven ocean warming around New Zealand, while slightly reducing the number of extra-hot days projected in future.
But its authors stress Antarctica’s accelerating ice loss – now totalling some 500 billion tonnes each year – should be viewed as anything but positive, given its worrying and myriad implications for the earth system.
The New Zealand, UK and German research team investigated a gap in state-of-the-art climate models, which projected future scenarios without factoring in assumptions of melting from the thick ice sheet that sits upon Antarctica’s land area.
