Satellites Show Earth Lost More than 12 Trillion Tons of Ice From Greenland, Antarctica in 47 Years
- A major study published Wednesday in Scientific Data reveals that Greenland and Antarctica lost 11.3 trillion tons of ice between 1979 and 2023, representing the longest satellite record of polar ice loss ever assembled.
- Lead study author Ines Otosaka, an ice scientist at Northumbria University, found that 84% of ice loss stems from glaciers flowing into oceans, while just 16% results from surface melting driven by atmospheric temperatures.
- This melt has pushed global sea levels up about 1 inch, or 3 centimeters, since 1979. Otosaka noted that for every third of an inch of rise, 2 to 3 million people face annual flooding.
- A temporary slowdown from 2020 to 2023 caused by record snowfall was "just a bump in the record," co-author Eric Rignot of the University of California, Irvine, said, though the accelerating trend has since resumed.
- Researchers warn that dynamic processes, which are more abrupt than steady melting, could trigger runaway "tipping points." Co-author Andrew Shepherd of Northumbria University added these changes track decades behind global warming, ensuring continued impacts.
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An important scientific report indicates that, since 1979, about 11.3 billion metric tons of glacier ice have melted in Greenland and Antarctica, a sufficient amount of frozen water to stack ice in a thick...
The ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica have lost 11 trillion tons of ice over the past 50 years. This has caused global sea levels to rise by more than 3 centimeters. Moreover, a large-scale international satellite study shows that the main cause is not the melting of ice at the surface, but glaciers flowing into the ocean at an increasingly rapid rate.
The Toronto Star
Satellites show Earth lost more than 12 trillion tons of ice from Greenland, Antarctica in 47 years
About 12.5 trillion tons (11.3 trillion metric tons) of ice from glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica have melted since 1979, which is enough frozen water to stack ice five feet deep across the continental United States, according to a major…
Svenska Dagbladet
corren.seGreenland and Antarctica have lost 11.3 trillion tons of ice since the 1970s. It has raised global sea levels by more than three centimetres, according to a new study.
More than four fifths of the lost ice were dumped into the ocean by faster-flowing glaciers
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