Lasers Reveal Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets Thinning
24.09.2009 - Atmosphere & Space, Water & Oceans, Ice & Snow, Human Dimension, Other, Arctic, Antarctic
Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Bristol have analyzed millions of measurements of the ice sheet thickness in Greenland and Antarctica from NASA's high-resolution Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat). The results of the analysis, published this week in Nature, show with unprecedented accuracy that the most important ice loss is due to the fact that glaciers are speeding up as they flow towards the sea.
This dynamic thinning of the glaciers, which reaches all latitudes in Greenland and has intensified on the coastlines of Antarctica, reaches far into the interior of the ice sheets, and is increasing as ice shelves at their edges thin out. Scientists have determined that the ice loss from glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica is far greater that which is gained through snowfall.
Warm ocean currents reaching the coast and melting glacier fronts appears to be the most likely cause of this phenomenon; however, this kind of ice loss is not well understood, which is why it remains the most unpredictable aspect of predicting future sea level rise.
