Grim Picture of Polar Ice-Sheet Loss

ananyo writes "A global team of researchers has come up with the most accurate estimate yet for melting of the polar ice sheets, ending decades of uncertainty about whether the sheets will melt further or actually gain mass in the face of climate change. The ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting at an ever-quickening pace. Since 1992, they have contributed 11 millimeters — or one-fifth — of the total global sea-level rise, say the researchers. The two polar regions are now losing mass three times faster than they were 20 years ago, with Greenland alone now shedding ice at about five times the rate observed in the early 1990s. This latest estimate, published this week in Science, draws on up to 32 years of ice-sheet simulations and 20 years of satellite data to give an estimate two to three times more accurate than that in the last IPCC report."

Comments

then 22. Then 44. Then 88.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you'll be bitching about all these foreigners coming in and taking up all the land, eating all the food and making trouble.

why?

Because you're an asshat.

Re:Fingers in ears

[cayenne8]

OOOoh.....a whole 11 mm???

.....scary.

Re:Fingers in ears

[craigminah]

Obviously this is George Bush's fault.

This news isn't anything new as there's been plenty of stories about the shrinking ice sheets in Greenland and the Andes in the last decade. The part that's in debate is the cause...is this anthropogenic, cyclical, or a combination of the two? Looking back at data from various sources shows it's cyclical with a trend towards ice melt not being restored by the subsequent winter ice freeze from one year to the next. This results in less ice (derka derka). Nobody can say with certainty what's causing this and it would be futile to try to reverse it; it will all work itself out when humankind goes extinct :)