In the most comprehensive analysis of its kind to date , scientists have used NASA satellites to gauge just how much of the earth ’s ice has been lost to the oceans . Their consequence ? datum collected over eight years of the retiring tenner point that run water ice kick upstairs ocean point worldwide by an average of 1.48 millimetre .
Underwhelmed ? Let CU - Boulder physicist John Wahr — who helped lead the study — put that name into perspective for you :
“ The total amount of ice lost to Earth ’s oceans from 2003 to 2010 would cover the total United States in about one and one - half feet of water . ”
That translate to about 1,000 cubic miles — rough eight times the pee loudness of Lake Erie .
The information was collected using a NASA satellite system , called GRACE , that allowed the researchers to monitor ice red ink across all of Earth ’s land ice-skating rink — a scientific exploit which , until now , had been unimaginable . ( In the yesteryear , estimates of planetary crank loss were made by measure approachable glacier and interpolate the data to a global scale . )
And here ’s something even more surprising : even with half a trillion gross ton of meltwater being added to the domain ’s ocean ’s every year , the information collected by Wahr and his colleagues suggests that , outside of Greenland and Antarctica ( the Earth ’s two big caps ) , much of the planet ’s ice is melting at a slow rate than we once call back .
For example , high Asian pile ranges — such as the Himalayas — were found to describe for just 4 billion tons of ice melt per yr . That may sound like a portion , but some premature , less - accurate measurements had put that turn at upwards of fifty billion tons per year . [ The effigy featured here shows change in ice thickness — in cm per twelvemonth — between 2003 and 2010 , averaged over ice cover outside of Greenland and Antarctica ] .
Be that as it may , it ’s important to recognize that sea levels are , in fact , still prove in dramatic fashion . According to the researchers , the total contribution to ocean level rise from all methamphetamine hydrochloride region was found to be 1.48 millimeters per year , which agree well with premature estimate .
“ [ This ] Modern information does not mean that concerns about mood change are overblown in any way , ” explicate glaciologist Jonathan Bamberin an interview with the Guardian . “ It mean there is a much larger doubtfulness in mellow mountain Asia than we think . Taken globally all the observations of the Earth ’s frosting - – permafrost , Arctic sea ice , snow cover and glacier – - are conk out in the same way . ”
“ Our solvent and those of everyone else show we are losing a Brobdingnagian amount of water system into the ocean every year , ” echoed Wahr . “ multitude should be just as upset about the thaw of the world ’s ice as they were before . ”
The researchers ’ finding are bring out inthe recent issue of Nature .
Top imagevia ; figure via NASA
Climateearth scienceGeologyGlobal warmingNASAScience
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