London - Global sea levels could rise by six metres (19 feet) if a huge polar ice sheet disintegrates, new research from US scientists shows. But scientists say it is not yet clear whether the geological conditions exist to cause the west Antarctic ice sheet to melt en masse.
Mr Charles Bentley of the University of Wisconsin said the West Antarctic ice sheet was the one most likely to shrink rapidly because it rested on a bed far below sea level. But, writing in the scientific journal Nature, he said it was unclear whether it could disappear as quickly as ice sheets did at the end of the last Ice Age.