Abstract: The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest grounded ice in the world, which occupies more than three fourths of the Earth’s fresh water and contains sufficient ice to raise world-wide sea level by more than 60m if melted completely. Since major interactions between the ice sheet, atmosphere and oceans affect the entire global system, the ice sheet plays a critical role in global change. The ice sheet not only respond to climatic change but also influence climate greatly through feedback. Any changes in mass balance of the ice sheet may be of importance to global sea-level change. The special geographic location, ice thickness, snow accumulation rate and surface temperature combine to make the Antarctic ice sheet the storehousee of the longest and potentially most diverse ice records on earth. The global changee information preserved in the ice sheet is unique because of its wide range of direct and proxy measures, long time-scale. and high resolution and fidelity. During the past decades, research on the Antarctic ice sheet has made great progress both in investigation of the ice sheet and recovery of climatic and environmental record preserved in it, primarily due to modern technological advances. To date the form and extent of the surface features of the ice sheet have been defined much clear, and a lot of data on the ice thickness and the sub-ice bedrock topography (and hence estimation of the ice volum) has been acquired. Studies of ice cores taken from the ice sheet have already provided climatic and environmental records over the last ice age cycle. Some achivements in monitoring of the greenhouse gases and the anthropogenic pollutants have also been made. Since the global change is becoming increasingly important to the human race. to further understand the ice sheet and investigate the ralationships between the ice. atmosphere and oceans and to monitor and detect the global change in the ice sheet will be the front of Antarctic research in future. More widespread international and multiple disciplinees cooperation is certainly emphasized in the coming programs .

Key words: Antarctic ice sheet, global change, climatic and environmental record, sea-level change, atmospheric circulaitons