Antarctic Ice Loss Accelerates, Catching up with Greenland’s Loss
25.01.2008 - Other
According to a new study by UC Irvine and NASA scientists, Ice loss in Antarctica increased by 75 percent over the last 10 years. This loss is mainly due to a speed-up in the flow of Antarctic glaciers.
The team estimated changes in Antarctica's ice mass between 1996 and 2006 and mapped patterns of ice loss on a glacier-by-glacier basis. A sharp jump in Antarctica's ice loss was detected. The net loss of ice mass from Antarctica increased from 112 (plus or minus 91) gigatonnes a year in 1996 to 196 (plus or minus 92) gigatonnes a year in 2006.
The losses were primarily concentrated in West Antarctica's Pine Island Bay sector and the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. They are caused by ongoing and past acceleration of glaciers into the sea . This trend is mostly a result of warmer ocean waters bathing the buttress floating sections of glaciers and causing them to thin or collapse.
Even in East Antarctica, where ice mass is found to be in near balance, ice loss was detected in potentially unstable marine sectors, warranting closer study.
