Beyond the Antarctic coast

Brazil and the Antarctic ice shelf

Abstract

The largest seasonal phenomenon of our planet occurs in Antarctica, the variation of the rozen sea area, which oscillates every year from 1.8 to 20 million square kilometers, controls the entire climate system in the Southern Hemisphere, particularly the South Atlantic. This ice sheet, which covers 99.7% of the Antarctic continent with its 13.7 million square kilometers of area, has of volume of 25 million cubic km and is very close to Brazil. That's right, it would cover the whole country with a homogeneous layer of ice nearly 3 km thick!