How do humans melt ice?
A group of British and American scientists claims to have discovered conclusive proof that humans are to blame for considerable Antarctic ice loss. They claim that their study is the first to show a direct correlation between human-caused global warming and the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Scientists have long known that increased temperatures can cause ice shelves and glaciers to melt, but this new study shows for the first time that it is possible to calculate how much more likely an area of ice sheet is to collapse due to warming temperatures. The team used computer models of WAIS behavior to show that if current trends continue, the region will be completely melted in about 300 years. The study was published in Nature on Wednesday, February 9th, 2013. It was led by David Vaughan of the University of Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute and includes researchers from the University of Cambridge, the University of California, Irvine, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the French National Center for Scientific Research. In order for humans to melt ice from the Earth's surface, we need only heat it up enough to cause water molecules to break away from the ice and enter the atmosphere. As these atmospheric waters vaporize, they leave behind a vacancy in the structure of the ice that can't be replaced because ice is composed of frozen water molecules.