The thick glaciers covering Greenland and Antarctica are melting faster than scientists expected
By Lauren Morello and ClimateWire
ICE MELT: Thick ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting faster than scientists had predicted, contributing more to sea level rise. Image: Courtesy of NSIDC
Ice loss from the massive ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica is accelerating, according to a new study.
If the trend continues, ice sheets could become the dominant contributor to sea level rise sooner than scientists had predicted, concludes the research, which will be published this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“The traditional view of the loss of land ice on Earth has been that mountain glaciers and ice caps are the dominant contributors, and ice sheets are following behind,” said study co-author Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California, Irvine. “In this study, we are showing that ice sheets, mountain glaciers and ice caps are neck-and-neck.”
But that could soon change, Rignot said, because the rate at which ice sheets are losing mass is increasing three times faster than the rate of ice loss from mountain glaciers and ice caps.
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