NASA: 318 gigatons of ice are melting in Antarctica and Greenland each year, says NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) found that Antarctica and Greenland are losing around 318 gigatons of ice each year.

According to a report on Earth.com, NASA scientists analyzed the changes taking place in Antarctica and the Greenland ice sheets using advanced laser instruments.

The observation revealed a massive shift, including small gains in East Antarctica and massive losses in West Antarctica over the past 16 years.

Experts found 14 millimeters of sea level rise between 2003 and 2019 caused by the general losses of Greenland and Antarctic ice. However, the data collected is only a third of the total amount of recorded sea level rise in the world’s oceans within this period.

NASA launched the “Ice, Cloud and Earth 2 Elevation Satellite” also called “ICESat-2” in 2018 to perform detailed and accurate global elevation measurements.

The researchers compared the data collected between 2003 and 2009 using the original ICESat and the measurements acquired using ICESat-2 to create a complete portrait of the changes in the ice sheet in Antarctica and Greenland.

Massive merger; Antarctica and Greenland are losing 318 gigatons of ice.

According to the Earth.com report, the study by NASA scientists, which was published by the Journal Science, showed that the Greenland ice sheets are losing 200 gigatons of ice per year. Meanwhile, 118 gigatons of ice are melting in Antarctica each year.

The report explained that a single ice gigaton could cover New York’s Central Park, enveloping it in ice over 1,000 feet thick, taller than the Chrysler Building.

“If you look at a glacier or ice sheet for a month or a year, you won’t learn much about the weather,” said Ben Smith, a glaciologist at the University of Washington and lead author. from The Study.

“We now have a 16-year gap between ICESat and ICESat-2 and we can be much more confident that the changes we are seeing on the ice have to do with long-term changes in the climate,” he explained later in the report. .

To properly measure how much ice has been lost, the researchers developed a new ICESat model that converts the volume of the ice sheet to mass. A laser altimeter sends 10,000 pulses of light to the Earth’s surface per second. ICESat-2 uses it to accurately measure terrain elevation. The team records how long it takes for light to return to the satellite in a billionth of a second.

“These early results analyzing land ice confirm the consensus of other research groups, but also allow us to see the details of the change in individual glaciers and ice shelves at the same time,” said Neumann, a scientist for the ICESat-2 project at The NASA. Goddard Space Flight Center.

The study results revealed that the ice sheet in the interior parts of Antarctica is thickening due to increased snowfall. However, warming ocean has also caused ice melting on the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica, outpacing gains in the inland ice sheet.

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