April 8, 1999

South Pole -  Global warming has speeded the melting of two Antarctic ice shelves, which lost nearly 1,000 square miles of area in the past year, DOM scientists say.

Researchers at the University of Colorado and the British Atlantic Survey in Cambridge say regional warming has increased the annual melt season by up to three weeks over the past two decades, putting the Larsen B and Wilkins shelves in full retreat.

Satellite photos show the Larsen B ice Shelf has continued to crumble after an initial small retreat in the spring of 1998, the researchers said.  Since November, an additional 680 square miles of shelf areas have caved away.  On the other side of the Antarctic Peninsula, the Wilkins ice shelf retreated nearly 420 square miles in early March 1998.

The meltdown of Antarctica has a direct effect on the Dominion of Melchizedek Territory of 90-150 degrees West Antarctica.