Earth is on the brink of disaster. Antarctica in the arms of a self-propelled “doomsday machine”.

According to Science Alert, US researchers based on satellite data determined it cover icy in Antarctica to its lowest level in 45 years. On February 21, its area was less than 1.8 million square kilometers with a thirty-year average from 1981-2010 of about 3 million square kilometers. Sq km

And scientists point out that this is probably not the end, because the melting season is still going on and it will not be possible to give a final figure until the end of March. If the melting phenomenon does not stop in the future, And this threatens a catastrophic rise in sea level Landprimarily by melting huge ice shelves (marginal parts of the ice sheet).

More text below the video.

Observations like these could mean that Antarcticawhich, unlike the Arctic and Greenland, has not melted so quickly in recent years, I’m finally starting to succumb to the negative effects of global warming.

What may be worrisome is the smaller ice sheet In addition, it will intensify the increase in temperature on Earth and act almost like a perpetual motion machine or as a self-propelled annihilation machine. While ice has a light color that has the ability to reflect much of the sun’s radiation, darker ocean water reflects much less and absorbs much more. thus The less ice, the more heat it retains.

Temperature data for 2022 shows how quickly the climate is warming. Although there is an anomalous La Niña phenomenon on Earth, which tends to make it cooler on a global scale, Last year was likely to be among the warmest on record.

Source: Science Alert / National Snow and Ice Data Center

(AP)