Study Shows East Antarctic Ice Loss Faster and Larger than Originally Thought
26.11.2009 - Water & Oceans, Ice & Snow, Other, Antarctic
Until now, scientists believed East Antarctica to be moremelt-resistant than West Antarctica and that it was in balance; howevera new study published in Nature Geoscience indicates that this in fact may notbe the case.
Using data from the twin GRACE satellites covering the period until January 2009, University of Texas professor Jianli Chen and his colleagues analyzed almost seven years' worth of data on the ice sheet-ocean interaction in Antarctica and found that while West Antarctica was losing some 132 tons of ice into the oceans every year, East Antarctica was not far behind with a rate of loss of about 57 billion tons a year.
Another study published recently in the journal Nature reported an upwardly-revised figure for Antarctic temperatures during previous interglacials (which occur about every 100,000 years) such as the one the Earth is currently experiencing. During the last interglacial called the Eemian Period, which peaked some 128,000 years ago, temperatures in Antarctica were probably 6°C higher than today, about 3° C above previous estimates.
These findings suggest East Antarctica may be more sensitive to greenhouse gas warming. Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations were roughly equivalent to present day levels during the Eemian Period, which saw sea levels five to seven metres higher than today.
