Aerosol Pollution - What part in Ice-cap Meltdown?

Our polar icecap meltdown is accelerating.

Satellite images displayed at the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in March 2008 of the Wilkins Ice-sheet [part of the West Antarctic Ice-shelf - WAIS] melting, have me worried:

Antarctic Ice Shelf Disintegration Underscores a Warming World via kwout

The report by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center discusses the latest images in context of other large ice-melt events.

"The Wilkins is one of a string of ice shelves that have collapsed in the West Antarctic Peninsula in the past thirty years. The Larsen B became the most well-known of these, disappearing in just over thirty days in 2002. The Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Wordie, Muller, and the Jones Ice Shelf collapses also underscore the unprecedented warming in this region of Antarctica."

See the British Antarctic Survey [BAS] PDF report - British Antarctic Survey's version of this joint release.

The NSIDC have reported on other disturbing breakups on the Wilkins Ice Shelf and the Larsen B collapse.

Big Trouble in West Antarctica - Ice Shelves Rapidly Melting

In an article by Leigh Dayton in The Australian on 15th January, 2008 -- Scientists are alarmed about an estimated 200 billion tonnes of ice that melted from the West Antarctic Ice Shelf [WAIS] in 2006.

Antarctic ice cap melting faster than first thought | NEWS.com.au via kwout

Hobart based glaciologist, Ian Allison, with the Australian Antarctic Division and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre, comments"

"This work suggests that the ice flow is accelerating," Dr Allison said.

"It's worrying because ... the changes are happening due to processes we don't understand."

I spoke in March, 2008 with another scientist, Dr Ross Edwards, from the Desert Research Institute in the US, who is conducting further research into these 'unknown processes', as stated by Ian Allison.