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ESA's Cryosat Mission Sees Antarctic Ice Losses Double

Posted by samzenpus on from the it's-getting-hot-in-here dept.

An anonymous reader writes in with news that seems to confirm the alarming reports last week about Antarctic ice melting. "The new assessment comes from Europe's Cryosat spacecraft, which has a radar instrument specifically designed to measure the shape of the ice sheet. The melt loss from the White Continent is sufficient to push up global sea levels by around 0.43mm per year. Scientists report the data in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (abstract). The new study incorporates three years of measurements from 2010 to 2013, and updates a synthesis of observations made by other satellites over the period 2005 to 2010. Cryosat has been using its altimeter to trace changes in the height of the ice sheet — as it gains mass through snowfall, and loses mass through melting."

4 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hey, illiterate, that is simply from one source not the entire source of sea levels rising.

  2. Re:Do as the rich do by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The rich aren't actually doing that. Contrary to common belief, rich people are not actually more insightful and aware of things than your typical well-educated person. There isn't a conspiracy to exploit the results of climate change. Why bother when everything is based on next quarters' earnings anyways?

  3. Re:0.43 mm per year, eh? by WhiteZook · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, this recent study claims that in the years 2005-2011, contribution from melting ice was 3 times as high as thermal expansion of the oceans: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/jou...

  4. Re:Funny thing by OneAhead · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Here: chew on some better data

    ...because everyone knows a blog that is heavily funded by the Heartland Institute must be better than direct satellite measurements.

    And no, this is not an ad hominem; I'm not necessarily saying WUWT must necessarily be terrible purely because they have undeclared conflicts of interest, I'm just attacking your ridiculous qualifier better. How can you possibly argue that the quality of data on a blog with undeclared conflicts of interest is better data than direct satellite measurements? Your "better" just seems to mean "confirms my preconceptions".

    Though let's not kid ourselves, WUWT is terrible. Every time I visit it, I find huge embarrassing mistakes any BA in science could spot.