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LiveScience
LiveScience
Ben Turner

California-size Antarctic ice sheet once thought stable may actually be at tipping point for collapse

Antarctic California East Antarctica Stanford University
A photo of Cape Adare located west of the Wilkes Basin in East Antarctica.

A gigantic ice sheet that was thought to be stable may be much closer to runaway melt than anyone realized, a new study has revealed.

The Wilkes Subglacial Basin — a California-size ice sheet in East Antarctica that holds enough ice to lift global sea levels by 10 feet (3 meters) — could be close to thawing at its base. 

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