Shock Antarctic ice loss revealed by European satellite.

[wvit1001]

“It shows a very fast response of the ice sheet: in just a few years the dynamic regime completely shifted.”




Antarctica, the Earth’s largest store of fresh water, might be shedding ice at double the rate than a few years ago but experts believed its southern peninsula to be largely stable.

Researchers revealed today however the region’s ice sheet began abruptly to thin six years ago, and is in no sign of waning.

Satellite images show several glaciers along a 750km coastline have consistently lost about 66 cubic km, or 55 trillion litres of water a year between 2009-2014.

Amounting to 350,000 Empire State Buildings, they say, the onset of ice loss converts the region into the second contributor to sea level rise in Antarctica.

Writing in the journal Science, Bert Wouters at the University of Bristol, which led the report said: “The fact that so many glaciers in such a large region suddenly started to lose ice came as a surprise to us.”

“It shows a very fast response of the ice sheet: in just a few years the dynamic regime completely shifted.”

Rising sea levels from ice loss are a key concern due to their impact on low-lying coastal populations.

Warming oceans, instead of other causes like snowfall or air temperature, are leading the ice sheet to wane according to Wouters and colleagues.

Climate change and depletion of the ozone layer are causing westerly winds encircling the continent to become more vigorous, driving warmer water from the deep ocean poleward to coastal areas.


http://www.rtcc.org/2015/05/21/shock-antarctic-ice-loss-revealed-by-european-satellite/


http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6237/899

[Jw2]

try not to confuse the conservatives with facts.
 
 

[Dan]

Facts are an anathema to liberals.

[Byteryder]

Antarctica, the Earth’s largest store of fresh water, might be shedding ice at
double the rate than a few years ago but experts believed its southern peninsula to be largely stable.

[wvit1001]

Growing evidence has demonstrated the importance of ice shelf buttressing on the inland grounded ice, especially if it is resting on bedrock below sea level. Much of the Southern Antarctic Peninsula satisfies this condition and also possesses a bed slope that deepens inland. Such ice sheet geometry is potentially unstable. We use satellite altimetry and gravity observations to show that a major portion of the region has, since 2009, destabilized. Ice mass loss of the marine-terminating glaciers has rapidly accelerated from close to balance in the 2000s to a sustained rate of –56 ± 8 gigatons per year, constituting a major fraction of Antarctica’s contribution to rising sea level. The widespread, simultaneous nature of the acceleration, in the absence of a persistent atmospheric forcing, points to an oceanic driving mechanism.


http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6237/899

[lakitss]

A recent NASA study showed more ice than before. Some areas melt while others freeze, it's what the earth does and has for millenia.

The sky is not falling, only liberal IQ's.

[DaBoz]

Antarctic volcanic activity.

[chuck_curtis]

Whatever will be, will be.  That's climate and geological change.  But I sure am glad those glaciers in Wisconsin are gone, even though Florida was much larger.

[hoosier_daddy]

it is so sad when these glaciers and polar ice caps keep falling for that al gore climate change hoax.  they are just melting away out of the power of suggestion, not any real scientifical type reason.  just ask jeb bush!

[chuck_curtis]

The warmers are really deniers who believe the climate and geology are supposed to remain in state of stasis.

[littleeye]

Quick, raise taxes on the middle-class and redistribute wealth. This will stop the Global Warming Menace.

[dont-blameme]

How come they picking it up in Europe but not in America?