It is unarguably the world’s most picturesque and glorious continent, and one of the last places on Earth where man has not been able to achieve dominion. But that doesn’t mean Antarctica isn’t feeling the effects of mankind. In fact, for the first time in 1,800 years, its temperatures are beginning to rise.

Northern Thinking

The world is very much split in to two halves. The Northern Hemisphere contains approximately 90% of the planets human population and the majority of the landmass as well. When looking at an image of the globe from the top, you can see that the U.S., Canada, Greenland, Russia and bits of Europe all have a connection to the Arctic.

As a result much of the environmental news concerning ice-melt has dealt with the Arctic Circle. When thinking about ice melting, most of you are closest to the Arctic, and thus see that as the prominent ice-block.

Thankfully, you have loud-mouthed Australian’s like me to set the record straight: and I do so willingly and without hesitation.

Let us take a quick history lesson of my closest block of ice: Antarctica.

Antarctica 101

My brother and I have long held a fascination with Antarctica, and many books litter our house showcasing its beauty. We were first really introduced to it though, by Michael Palin, of Monty Python fame, but who has made himself in to a travelling virtuoso. His visit to the southernmost continent of our blue planet was a real eye opener for us.

Surrounded by what most people call the Southern Ocean, Antarctica comes in at number 5 in terms of land mass. Antarctica is, on average, the coldest, windiest and driest continent on the planet. It has the highest average elevation of all, and apart from its coast, is actually the world’s largest desert.

Antarctica does not have any permanent residents, but does have approximately 80,000 temporary residents, most inhabiting science stations dotted across the continent. Its lack of human population is not surprising, considering the continual days and continual nights that exist during summer and winter respectively.

But all of that is just a lead up to what concerns us right now: its ice.

The Antarctic ice sheet – which covers most of the continent – is one of the two polar caps on Earth. It is the single largest sheet of ice on the planet. Of the 14 million square kilometers and the 30 million cubic kilometers of ice on our planet, Antarctica holds 90% of the surface area, and 27 million cubic km.

There is not a consensus on how much fresh water the ice-sheet holds, but estimates range between Antarctica holding 60% and 90% of the Earth’s fresh water supply.

On average, the ice-sheet is as thick as 1.5 miles, five times the height of the Taipei 101 tower, the world’s tallest building. And while East Antarctica rests on a major land mass, the smaller West Antarctica has actually depressed its land mass some 2,500 kilometers down in to the ocean.

An Antarctic Warming Paradox

What makes the Antarctic continent so interesting is its reaction to global warming. For you see, the effects of global warming are both a blessing and a curse to Antarctica, depending on how far inland you go.

Various global warming models created have predicted that Antarctica would actually suffer from some of the worst. This may or may not have to do with the presence of the “ozone hole” being just north of the Antarctic coast (close to Tasmania and New Zealand).

However, a warming climate in the southern hemisphere would – theoretically – direct more moisture to the southernmost continent. In other words, all that water that is being evaporated would make its way south. This theory is backed up by NASA evidence that Antarctica has grown in mass over the past several decades.

However, evidence provided by University of Colorado at Boulder using a pair of NASA satellites orbiting Earth back in 2006 – four years after the original NASA report – has shown that Antarctica is actually losing ice. The team used measurements taken by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, to determine that the Antarctic ice sheet is losing up to 36 cubic miles of ice, or 152 cubic kilometers, annually. By comparison, the city of Los Angeles uses about 1 cubic mile of fresh water annually.

Now I mentioned that the global warming issue is changed as you move inland. And while the debate is on for whether Antarctica will benefit or suffer from global warming, its peninsula is already suffering heavily.

The Antarctic Peninsula - the northernmost part of the mainland of Antarctica – has warmed faster than any other location on Earth in the last 50 years.

U.N. Secretary on Antarctica’s Ice

It is this reason that saw the current U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visit Antarctica recently. As he stood upon the “prehistoric Antarctic ice sheets melting beneath his feet”, Ban called for urgent political action to combat global warming.

“I need a political answer. This is an emergency and for emergency situations we need emergency action,” he said during a visit to three scientific bases on the barren continent.

Friday saw Ban flying across various parts of the continent, witnessing the effects of calving. The giant and beautiful icebergs are both majestic, and reminders of the terrible tragedy that is occurring on the continent.

“All we’ve seen has been very impressive and beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful,” he said late on Friday. “But at the same time it’s disturbing. We’ve seen … the melting of glaciers.”

We’re getting ever closer to the U.N climate change conference in Bali, and Ban is making the rounds in preparation for the talks. He hopes that enough political and environmental support can be garnered so that a new accord is created to follow on from the Kyoto Protocol, when it expires in 2012.

He has visited Chile, and its melting glaciers, and also hopes to visit the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. “Climate change is progressing much faster than I had thought,” he said. And in reality, it is progressing much faster than many of us had thought.

The final question remains, is it progressing faster than we can combat it?

Reuters via ENN - U.N.’s Ban says global warming is “an emergency”