where do earth's large ice sheets now exist
Antarctica Greenland
title: Ice sheet text: Ice sheet An ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than . The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the last glacial period at Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the Laurentide ice sheet covered much of North America, the Weichselian ice sheet covered northern Europe and the Patagonian Ice Sheet covered southern South America. Ice sheets are bigger than ice shelves or alpine glaciers. Masses of ice covering less than 50,000 km are termed an ice cap. An ice cap will typically feed title: Ice sheet text: Ice Sheet covers 84% of the island and the Antarctic Ice Sheet covers approximately 98% of the continent. Due to the significant thickness of these ice sheets, global warming analysis typically focuses on the loss of ice mass from the ice sheets increasing sea level rise, and not on a reduction in the surface area of the ice sheets. Ice sheet An ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than . The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the last glacial period title: Ice sheet text: of Antarctica. The Greenland ice sheet did not develop at all until the late Pliocene, but apparently developed "very rapidly" with the first continental glaciation. This had the unusual effect of allowing fossils of plants that once grew on present-day Greenland to be much better preserved than with the slowly forming Antarctic ice sheet. The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest single mass of ice on Earth. It covers an area of almost 14 million km and contains 30 million km of ice. Around 90% of the Earth's ice mass is in Antarctica, which, if melted, would cause sea levels title: East Antarctic Ice Sheet text: East Antarctic Ice Sheet The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is one of two large ice sheets in Antarctica, and the largest on the entire planet. The EAIS lies between 45° west and 168° east longitudinally. The EAIS holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by 53.3 m and is considerably larger in area and mass than the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). It is separated from the WAIS by the Transantarctic Mountains. The EAIS is the driest, windiest, and coldest place on Earth, with temperatures reported down to nearly -100°C. The EAIS holds the thickest ice on Earth, title: Ice sheet text: a series of glaciers around its periphery. Although the surface is cold, the base of an ice sheet is generally warmer due to geothermal heat. In places, melting occurs and the melt-water lubricates the ice sheet so that it flows more rapidly. This process produces fast-flowing channels in the ice sheet — these are ice streams. The present-day polar ice sheets are relatively young in geological terms. The Antarctic Ice Sheet first formed as a small ice cap (maybe several) in the early Oligocene, but retreating and advancing many times until the Pliocene, when it came to occupy almost all