If the snow that falls on Antarctica keeps getting compacted, is the height above sea level increasing? Whats below the 8,000 feet of ice?
As snow piles up the ice is slowly moving toward the oceans around Antarctica. You can think of it as spreading out somewhat in the way pancake batter spreads out when you pour it on a griddle. When the ice reaches the oceans some of it breaks off as huge icebergs. Under all of the ice, most of Antarctica is a continent; that is, it’s solid rock. Parts of Antarctica, especially West Antarctica, are more like a group of islands. In both places the weight of the ice has pushed the rock down.
