NASA: Antarctica snowmelt moving inland

Baltimore -- NASA scientists studying 20 years of data from space-based sensors found Antarctic snow is increasingly melting farther inland and at higher altitudes.

The discovery is significant, scientists said, since Antarctica contains 90 percent of Earth's fresh water, making it the largest potential source of sea level rise. It is also a place where snow melting is limited because, even in summer, most areas typically record temperatures well below zero.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientists using data collected from 1987 to 2006 found snow is now melting as far inland as 500 miles from the Antarctic coast and as high as 1.2 miles above sea level in the Transantarctic Mountains.

The data also confirm melting has increased on the Ross Ice Shelf, both in geographic area and in duration.

"Snow melting is very connected to surface temperature change, so it's likely warmer temperatures are at the root of what we've observed in Antarctica," said lead author Marco Tedesco, a research scientist at the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology cooperatively managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland.

The study appears in the current issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

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Copyright 2007 by United Press International.