Ice sheets shrinking at 120 cubic miles a year in Antarctica and Greenland.

[G_j]

Last edited Wed Aug 27, 2014, 10:48 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.alternet.org/environment/incredible-rate-polar-ice-loss-alarms-scientists

the Observer UK / By Robin McKee

Incredible' Rate of Polar Ice Loss Alarms Scientists
A European satellite has shown ice sheets shrinking at 120 cubic miles a year in Antarctica and Greenland.

August 26, 2014 |

The planet's two largest ice sheets – in Greenland and Antarctica – are now being depleted at an astonishing rate of 120 cubic miles each year. That is the discovery made by scientists using data from CryoSat-2, the European probe that has been measuring the thickness of Earth's ice sheets and glaciers since it was launched by the European Space Agency in 2010.

Even more alarming, the rate of loss of ice from the two regions has more than doubled since 2009, revealing the dramatic impact that climate change is beginning to have on our world.

The researchers, based at Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research – used 200m data points across Antarctica and 14.3m across Greenland, all collected by CryoSat, to study how the ice sheets there had changed over the past three years. The satellite carries a high-precision altimeter, which sends out short radar pulses that bounce off the ice surface and then back to the satellite. By measuring the time this takes, the height of the ice beneath the spacecraft can be calculated.

It was found from the average drops in elevation that were detected by CryoSat that Greenland alone is losing about 90 cubic miles a year, while in Antarctica the annual volume loss is about 30 cubic miles. These rates of loss – described as "incredible" by one researcher – are the highest observed since altimetry satellite records began about 20 years ago, and they mean that the ice sheets' annual contribution to sea-level rise has doubled since 2009, say the researchers whose work was published in the journal Cryosphere last week.

"We have found that, since 2009, the volume loss in Greenland has increased by a factor of about two, and the West Antarctic ice sheet by a factor of three," said glaciologist Angelika Humbert, one of the study's authors. "Both the West Antarctic ice sheet and the Antarctic peninsula, in the far west, are rapidly losing volume. By contrast, East Antarctica is gaining volume, though at a moderate rate that doesn't compensate for the losses on the other side of the continent."

..more..

[Octafish]

1. No biggie.

For the prepared. For the rest of us who can't afford floating luxury escape pods, we're in for a bumpy ride.



Thank you for the heads-up, G_j. Seems the powers-that-be want the environment to do their dirty work cough final solution for them.

[G_j]

4. "this ain't no dream no more

it's the real thing!"

[PoutrageFatigue]

2. "More than doubled since 2009" - THAT is the real headline right there...

...this thing is on an exponential curve, we are well and truly fucked, and yet American voters continue to send deniers to Congress...

Un-fucking-believable...

[ChisolmTrailDem]

5. It's a runaway phenom now. nt

[PoutrageFatigue]

6. Yup....

...forget stopping/slowing down GW, it's time to plan for the aftermath...

[ProfessorGAC]

3. 132 Trillion Gallons of Water Per Year

Just, yikes.