09 February 2004
The Patagonian ice-fields of Chile and Argentina, the largest non-Antarctic ice masses in the Southern Hemisphere, are melting faster than any other glaciers on Earth. They have lost 42 cubic kilometres of ice every year over the past seven years, which is equivalent to the volume of ten thousand large football stadiums. Today, they account for nearly 10 per cent of global sea-level change caused by mountain glaciers, according to a new study by NASA and Chile's Centro de Estudios Cientificos, and the rate at which they are melting is accelerating.
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