| Antarctic Ice Sheet |
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Information AboutAntarctic Ice Sheet |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET | |
| antarctica | |
| glaciers of antarctica | |
| glaciology | |
| ice sheets | |
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The Antarctic ice sheet is one of the two Polar Ice Cap s of the Earth . It covers about 98% of the Antarctic Continent and is the largest single mass of Ice on Earth . The total ice mass on the Earth covers an area of almost 14 million square km and contains 30 million cubic km of ice. Around 90% of that, or 27 million cubic km, is located in Antarctica . That is, approximately 61 percent of all Fresh Water on the Earth is held in the Antarctic ice sheet, an amount equivalent to 70 m of water in the world's oceans. In East Antarctica , the ice sheet rests on a major land mass, but in West Antarctica the bed can extend to more than 2,500 m below sea level. The land would be seabed if the ice sheet were not there. British Antarctic Survey : The Antarctic Ice Sheet and Rising Sea Levels Ice enters the sheet through snow and frost and leaves by calving of Iceberg s and melting, usually at the base but also sometimes at the surface at warm sites. |
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