Warm waters melting Antarctic ice shelves have appeared for the first time in over 7,000 years

If Antarctica's ice sheets melted, the worlds oceans would rise by 200 - 210 feet, everywhere. Antarctica holds 6,957,470 cubic miles of ice. That represents over 90% of all the ice on the planet and between 60 to 70% of the worlds fresh water. The sea ice begins to expand at the beginning of winter, and eventually advances by 40,000 square miles per day, surrounding the continent and doubling the size of the ice in Antarctica. The snow that falls takes about 100,000 years to flow to the coast of Antarctica before it breaks off the marine extension of glaciers, or ice shelves, and becomes an iceberg. Once an iceberg breaks off the ice platform, any resistance that it provided to hold back the land ice is lost, and the continental ice can accelerate it’s flow to the southern ocean.