NASA/EO - Polar Ice Mass Balance - 18-Yr. Greenland & Antarctic Avg. Annual Loss Of 36.3 Gigatons

[hatrack]

EDIT

According to a new NASA-funded satellite study, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass at an accelerating pace and are overtaking ice loss from mountain glaciers and ice caps to become the dominant contributor to global sea level rise. The graph above shows the gain and loss of ice mass from the world's two largest ice sheets. Though there are gains within individual years, the overall trend from 1992 to 2010 has been toward losses.

Each year over the course of the 18-year study, the two ice sheets lost a combined average of 36.3 billion tons more than they did the year before. The Greenland ice sheet lost mass faster at an average of 21.9 billion tons more per year. In Antarctica, the year-over-year speedup in lost ice mass averaged 14.5 billion tons.

“That ice sheets will dominate future sea level rise is not surprising—they hold a lot more ice mass than mountain glaciers,” said lead author Eric Rignot, jointly of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California, Irvine. “What is surprising is this increased contribution by the ice sheets is already happening. If present trends continue, sea level is likely to be significantly higher than levels projected by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007.”

The authors conclude that, if current ice sheet melting rates continue for the next four decades, their cumulative loss could raise sea level by 15 centimeters (5.9 inches) by 2050. While this provides one indication of the potential contribution ice sheets could make to sea level in the coming century, the authors caution that considerable uncertainties remain in estimating future ice loss acceleration.

EDIT

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=49860

[GliderGuider]

1. Long after Fukushima gets cleaned up

the ice will keep melting, the seas will keep rising, rainfall patterns will keep shifting, aquifers will keep being drained, species will keep going extinct from habitat loss, soils will keep being depleted, forests will continue to be cut down and we will keep frantically trying to put technological band-aids on the myriad sucking chest wounds of the planet.

That is all.

[hatrack]

2. I have to paraphrase Lonnie Thompson, because I can't find the article in question . . .

But his quote was something like:

"Ice isn't Republican or Democratic. Ice doesn't respond to media blitzes or soundbites. Ice doesn't care about what is politically feasible. Ice just melts."

[cprise]

3. What about this shift in mass causing earthquakes?

n/t

[XemaSab]

4. Not to sound like a nerd

but quakes cause by isostatic rebound tend to be mild.

Quakes in California, Japan, Chile, and so forth are not caused by melting ice.