The icehouse effect

摘要

The waters around Antarctica are filling up with ice. Despite recent well-publicised collapses in the ice shelves, there are over 200,000 more square kilometres of the white stuff floating in the Southern Ocean than 20 years ago. This doesn't mean the climate change sceptics are right though. Strangely, the phenomenon is actually further proof of global warming. The ice build-up is probably caused mainly by greater snowfall, which in turn is a result of higher humidity. And that's because warmer temperatures have increased evaporation, says Jay Zwally of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.