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What is the average thickness of the ice sheet?
At its thickest point the ice sheet is 4,776 meters deep. It averages 2,160 meters thick, making Antarctica the highest continent. This ice is 90 percent of all the world’s ice and 70 percent of all the world’s fresh water.
How thick is the ice in the Arctic Circle?
Earth’s North Pole is covered by floating pack ice (sea ice) over the Arctic Ocean. Portions of the ice that do not melt seasonally can get very thick, up to 3–4 meters thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 meters thick. One-year ice is usually about 1 meter thick.
What is the maximum thickness of an ice sheet?
4,776 m
The maximum known thickness of the ice sheet is 4,776 m in Terre Adélie. Without the its ice, Antarctica may be the lowest lying continent. The greatest known depression of bedrock – the Byrd Subglacial Basin – lies at 2,538 m below sea level. Only about 0.4% of Antarctica is not covered by ice.
What is the size of the Antarctic ice sheet?
5.4 million square miles
The Antarctic Ice Sheet extends almost 14 million square kilometers (5.4 million square miles), roughly the area of the contiguous United States and Mexico combined. The Antarctic Ice Sheet contains 30 million cubic kilometers (7.2 million cubic miles) of ice.
How thick is the thickest Arctic ice?
Currently, 28% of Arctic basin sea ice is multi-year ice, thicker than seasonal ice: up to 3–4 m (9.8–13.1 ft) thick over large areas, with ridges up to 20 m (65.6 ft) thick.
How big is the Arctic ice sheet?
Together, the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets contain more than 99 percent of the freshwater ice on Earth. The Antarctic Ice Sheet extends almost 14 million square kilometers (5.4 million square miles), roughly the area of the contiguous United States and Mexico combined.
How thick was the North American ice sheet?
Well, during what is called the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) or about 21,000 years ago, North America was covered by an ice sheet called the Laurentide Ice Sheet that was approximately four kilometers (about 2.5 miles) thick and 13 million sq kilometers wide (5 million sq miles).
How does the ice on Antarctica get thicker?
Fresher, colder water freezes more easily, so this mechanism may contribute to the growth in area of Antarctic sea ice. Furthermore, the increased weight of snow on the sea ice may force it deeper into the water, forming thicker sea ice when the snow refreezes.