The general belief that the eastern Antarctic area is getting colder despite the worldwide trend of increasing temperatures, has just been debunked a few days ago by a report presented in the journal Nature, which provides details about the area’s changes over the past 50 years.

This represented a big issue for quite some time now, as the cooling process failed to make a lot of sense. The climate scientists involved in the study, who took the measurements across the entire continent, reached the conclusion that the region’s average has increased by 0.12 C every decade since 1957. The research involved an analysis of the readings archives stored by satellites over the past 25 years, providing important data unavailable from any other sources, and also the reports and information gathered by weather stations over the past 50 years.

Professor of Earth and space sciences Eric Steig from the University of Washington, who is also the leader of the research, stated that the findings "killed off" global warming sceptics' claims about the cooling phenomenon of the Antarctic area.

"The thing you hear all the time is that Antarctica is cooling — and that's not the case," explained Steig. "If anything, it's the reverse, but it's more complex than that. Antarctica isn't warming at the same rate everywhere." West Antarctica is showing signs of warming up much faster than anticipated.

These conclusions add a significant amount of pressure to the fears about the rising sea levels. Scientists claim that the warming process is likely to accelerate in the near future, leading to the melting of several portions of the continent. According to the estimates, losing only a fraction of the continent’s ice sheet could mean a rise in the sea level by at least two meters - which might occur by the end of the century and cause devastating problems for many coastal cities and other areas. The scenario about the melt-down of the continent’s entire frozen water puts the world in a great danger, as it would raise the sea level by 57 meters (187 feet), covering many islands and cities. Even though this is not the case for now, it is always good to know such things, in order to better address the present issues.

According to the estimates of Drew Shindell, from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who is also one of the study’s authors, a 3 Celsius (5.4 F) rise would be  enough to trigger a wide melt of West Antarctica. Ten ice sheets have already been lost over the past 20 years, and a new one is expected to break away in the near future, as it is kept in place by a 500 meter wide sliver of ice, which was no less than 100 km long 50 years ago.

There is still time to make a change and avoid the effects presented above. Still, this would demand the joint effort of the planet’s governments and also the people, as such a matter needs to be covered from as many points as possible.