Ice melt in Greenland, Antarctica shown in new satellite images

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Ice melt in Greenland, Antarctica shown in new satellite images

 

 

This shows the amount of ice gained or lost by Antarctica between 2003 and 2019. Dark reds and purples show large average rates of ice loss near the Antarctic coast, while blues show smaller

 

rates of ice gain in the interior. The ice lost near the coasts, especially West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula, vastly outweigh gains in the interior. (Smith et al./Science)

 

“It was amazing to see how good the ICESat-2 data looked, right out of the gate,” said co-author Tom Neumann, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “These first results

 

looking at land ice confirm the consensus from other research groups, but they also let us look at the details of change in individual glaciers and ice shelves at the same time.”

 

Of the sea level rise that resulted from ice sheet meltwater and iceberg calving, about two-thirds of it came Greenland with the other third from Antarctica, the researchers said.

 

“The new analysis reveals the ice sheets’ response to changes in climate with unprecedented detail, revealing clues as to why and how the ice sheets are reacting the way they are,” co-author Alex

 

Gardner, a glaciologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a statement.

 

This shows the amount of ice gained or lost by Greenland between 2003 and 2019. Dark reds and purples show large rates of ice loss near the coasts. Blues show smaller rates of ice gain in the

 

interior of the ice sheet. (Smith et al./Science)

 

“In West Antarctica, we’re seeing a lot of glaciers thinning very rapidly,” Smith said. “There are ice shelves at the downstream end of those glaciers, floating on water. And those ice shelves are

 

thinning, letting more ice flow out into the ocean as the warmer water erodes the ice.”

 

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