Researchers: Antarctic ice vanishing

BOULDER, Colo., March 2 (UPI) -- Researchers predict a significant rise in sea levels in the next few hundred years as global warming melts the Antarctic ice.

The authors of a paper published in Science say that as much as 36 cubic miles of ice are being lost every year. They used data from two NASA satellites to determine that Antarctic melting is causing a sea level rise of .4 millimeters a year.

"The ice sheet is losing mass at a significant rate," Isabella Velicogna, a scientist at Colorado University and the lead author of the paper, told the Washington Post. "It's a good indicator of how the climate is changing. It tells us we have to pay attention."

Richard Alley, a Penn State glaciologist, cautioned that the study is based on only three years of data and said more work is needed to determine if the melting is a continuing trend.

Two researchers said last month that the Greenland ice cap is melting twice as fast as previously thought. Another paper published in Science predicted that global climate change will cause the loss of many African water sources in the next 100 years.