Antarctica is the icy continent surrounding the South Pole. It has no permanent human population and is almost devoid of animal and plant life. It is the coldest continent, with an average temperature of about -70° F. That is cold.
Despite the cold temperatures, Antarctica is a very important continent. The ice that covers the continent makes up 90% of the world’s ice and 70% of the world’s fresh water. Some scientists believe that global warming could cause the polar ice caps to melt. If just the western section of Antarctica's ice cap were to melt, the sea level throughout the world would rise by twenty feet. (Beware if you live close to an ocean!)
The ice sheet that covers almost all of Antarctica (98% of the continent, in fact) was formed from snows that fell for millions of years in layers upon the land and never melted. The weight of this snow compressed the bottom layers, eventually turning them to ice.
At its thickest point, the ice sheet on Antarctica is 15,670 feet thick. To the nearest tenth of a mile, how thick is the ice sheet at this point?