Antarctica's ice cap is melting ever faster, revealed researchers Christopher Harig and Frederik Simons. They found that the ice loss has increased by six billion tons per year during the last 11-years. In the southern continent, it is the ocean currents rather than air temperatures that melt the ice, and melted land ice contributes to higher sea levels in a way that melting icebergs do not. As the ocean water warms, floating ice shelves melt and can no longer hold back the land ice. Researchers developed a unique data-analysis method that allowed them to separate GRACE data by specific Antarctic regions.
When the researchers 'weighed' Antarctica's ice sheet, they found that from 2003 to 2014, the ice sheet lost 92 billion tons per year. They also found that since 2008, ice loss from West Antarctica's unstable glaciers doubled from an average annual loss of 121 billion tons of ice to twice that by 2014.
Sea Levels may Rise With Global Warming: Researchers
An international team of researchers has said that sea levels may rise by about 2.3 meters for each degree celsius of global warming within the next 2,000 years.
Frederik Simons, associate professor of geosciences, Princeton University and co-author of the study, said, "With the rapidly accelerating rates at which the ice is melting, and in the light of all the other, well-publicized lines of evidence, most scientists would be hard pressed to find mechanisms that do not include human-made climate change."
The study is published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Source: Medindia
Greenland Ice Sheet Collapse Linked to Raising Global Sea Levels 400,000 Years Ago
A warming period more than 400,000 years ago pushed the Greenland ice sheet past its stability threshold; resulting in a nearly complete deglaciation of southern Greenland and raising global sea levels some 4-6 meters, suggest researchers.
Climate Change Report: Sea Levels can Rise More Than 80 Centimeters During 21st CenturySea levels of the world could increase more than 80 centimetres this century reveals a leaked draft of a landmark climate change report prepared for the UN. | Advertisement
|
Sea Levels Raised by 20m By Global Warming 5 Million Years Ago
Parts of Antarctica's large ice sheets could have been melted by global warming caused five million years ago and caused sea levels to rise by about 20 metres.
Recommended Readings
Latest Environmental Health
