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WASHINGTON — Climate changes appear to be destabilizing vast ice sheets of western Antarctica that had previously seemed relatively protected from global warming, researchers reported Sunday, raising the prospect of faster sea-level rising than current estimates.
While the overall loss is a tiny fraction of the miles-deep ice that covers much of Antarctica, scientists said the finding is important because the continent holds about 90 percent of Earth’s ice, and until now, ice loss there had been limited to the peninsula closest to South America. Researchers also found the rate of ice loss in the area has accelerated in the last decade — as it has on most glaciers in the world.
