How can there be a "West Antarctica"?
The researchers said that overall melting of the underside of part of the Thwaites shelf in West Antarctica was less than expected from estimates derived from computer models. But they also discovered that rapid melting was occurring in unexpected places: a series of terraces and crevasses that extended up into the ice.
ADDING: Okay, I guess I should have googled before I wrote this post. Apparently, the left side of the above map is called "West Antarctica." The line is the prime meridian that divides the world into the East and West Hemispheres. If you trace that line through Antarctica, it splits the continent into an East and West. There is a map here. I guess it makes sense that they would figure something out once humans started tromping around down there and needed to tell each other which direction stuff was in when that stuff wasn't directly between them and the South Pole.
