Recently Global Warming has come under a lot of skepticism and has unfortunately turned into a debatable political issue. Fortunately and unfortunately, a NASA satellite recently detected proof of huge areas of snow melt in Antarctica in January of 2005. The QuikScat satellite detects snowmelt by using radar pulses that bounce off of the ice that forms when snowmelt refreezes.
According to LiveScience.com, this data has been consistently collected from July 1999 to July 2005 and shows clearly that substantial melting has occurred. Shown by the red and yellow areas in the image to the left, these melting areas add up to an area equal to that of California. Scientist also noticed that much of this melting has occurred far inland and at higher elevations, where melting was thought to be highly unlikely.
This melting ice could cause massive problems in the future if steps are not taken to stop global warming. Antarctica is the world’s largest fresh water reservoir and scientists believe that this fresh water runoff could change the salinity and temperature of the ocean in the area.� This change in temperature and/or salinity could have detrimental effects to the local currents and jet streams and cause global climate change.
Reference: LiveScience.com>