ESA Satellite Shows Sudden Ice Loss In Southern Antarctic Peninsula

ddelmonte tips news that the ESA's CryoSat spacecraft has detected a sharp increase in the rate at which ice is being lost in a previously stable section of Antarctica. In 2009, glaciers at the Southern Antarctic Peninsula began rapidly shedding ice into the ocean, at a rate of roughly 60 cubic kilometers per year (abstract). From the ESA's press release: This makes the region one of the largest contributors to sea-level rise in Antarctica, having added about 300 cubic km of water into the ocean in the past six years. Some glaciers along the coastal expanse are currently lowering by as much as four m each year. Prior to 2009, the 750 km-long Southern Antarctic Peninsula showed no signs of change. ... The ice loss in the region is so large that it has even caused small changes in Earth’s gravity field, detected by NASA’s GRACE mission. Climate models show that the sudden change cannot be explained by changes in snowfall or air temperature. Instead, the team attributes the rapid ice loss to warming oceans.

Comments

Sudden?

[ArcadeMan]

People have been talking about global warming/climate change/politically-correct-term since the last two decades but some countries just keep their head in the sand. *COUGH*U.S.A.*COUGH*

Re:Sudden?

[itsenrique]

Why is this necessarily so? In many cases, e get the politicians who's team has the most money.

Re:Sudden?

[dywolf]

You were saying something about increasing over the past 5 years?
Yeah...no.

http://skepticalscience.com//p...

Re:Sudden?

[garyisabusyguy]

I agree with laziness as being a problem, but I would say that it appears as people being too lazy to get their buts to the polls.

There is a large group of people who do not even bother to vote, with the 2014 election being an example of the lowest voter turnout for America in the past 70 years.
There is a smaller group people who believe the fud they are served up and are motivated to vote because of it.

As a result we saw huge wins for the gop in 2014, which is the largest user of fear driven propaganda to get their base to he polls

If the larger group remains uninvolved the smaller, easily propagandized group (and the propagandists that motivate them) will determine public policy and this country will promote policies that will end up hurting the entire planet

Re:Strangely mixed signals here

[Anonymous Coward]

The earlier submission is not citing NASA's satellite. According to the submission itself, the "original source" is Forbes. The article on Forbes does not have any link to NASA website, he has a link to a graph which shows some data, but does not link to any explanation of this data. (you know, something like a scientific article, or at least the web page of the satellite/project which provide the data, just to know what it represents)

Re:Haters gonna hate (Any materialized predictions

[serviscope_minor]

Ah, ad-hominems, they prove everything!

No, it's ad-homenim if he says "Mi is an ignorant bigot and therefore his arguments are invalid". otherwise it's just an insult.