Greenland ice loss doubles from late 2000s

News Article Science Topics
Aug 21, 2014

By Jonathan Amos

 

A new assessment from Europe’s CryoSat spacecraft shows Greenland to be losing about 375 cu km of ice each year.

Added to the discharges coming from Antarctica, it means Earth’s two big ice sheets are now dumping roughly 500 cu km of ice in the oceans annually.

“The contribution of both ice sheets together to sea level rise has doubled since 2009,” said Angelika Humbert from Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute.

“To us, that’s an incredible number,” she told BBC News.

In its report to The Cryosphere journal, the AWI team does not actually calculate a sea-level rise equivalent number, but if this volume is considered to be all ice (a small part will be snow) then the contribution is likely to be on the order of just over a millimetre per year.

9 comments on “Greenland ice loss doubles from late 2000s”

  • 2
    David R Allen says:

    Nothing to see here folks. Move along now. Nothing to see. Just let the grown ups deal with. Just another hysterical report by communist / UN / scientists seeking scam funding grants conspiracy to take over the world and install a world wide secret Jewish government. Nothing you need concern yourselves with. The Free Market will fix everything. Oreskes and Conway are in jail.

    As you are leaving, collect your wet suits and flippers over here. The instruction manual has been condensed to a video now. Collect it as you are leaving for the mountains. The video is called Waterworld. BTW. The thing with the gills is just Hollywood spin. It won’t happen. See you all in heaven.

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  • 6
    Stafford Gordon says:

    You refer to Lord Nigel of Lawson I presume Nitya.

    There’s a man who can be taken at his word; if you’re sufficiently credulous that is.

    I hear that he’s been swanning around in your neck o’ the woods putting a word or three in for your Prime Minister and his pals, apropos of the great climate chaos conspiracy.

    I blame the parents.

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  • 7
    Alan4discussion says:

    The National Geographic did an article on “Rising Seas” – and of course the denial-net went into overdrive to misrepresent it!

    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/09/130913-rising-seas-cover-september-statue-liberty-climate-change-global-warming/

    On the September cover, the Statue of Liberty stands in water up to her midsection, where the label “NO ICE” marks how high the sea would rise on the American icon if all the ice on Earth melted.

    The cover story, “Rising Seas,” looks ahead to 2100 and the effects that higher sea levels caused by climate change might have on our coastlines.

    The world’s ice won’t have come close to disappearing by 2100. According to some scientists, that won’t happen for at least 5,000 years, and we’d have to burn through the planet’s supply of coal, oil, and gas to make it happen.

    But for the image on the cover (and for the pull-out poster accompanying the story), we wanted to explore what the world would look like if all the ice melted. Bill Marr, the magazine’s creative director, decided that the best way to illustrate this extreme scenario would be to use a recognizable point of reference: the Statue of Liberty. Nick Kaloterakis was recruited to create the art.

    The first question, of course, was how high the seas would rise on an ice-free planet. That answer was straightforward enough. Philippe Huybrechts of Vrije Universiteit Brussel projected a total sea-level rise of 216 feet (66 meters) should the entire cryosphere melt, including the behemoth East Antarctic ice sheet.

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  • 8
    Nitya says:

    Hi Stafford.
    I was thinking of a couple of fine examples as a matter of fact; Lawson and Monckton. We should all pay heed to,their ramblings because they’re our social betters and know what’s good for us! All we need now are a few words from the erudite Prince Philip and there you have it!
    They can cherry-pick to their hearts content, but the melting ice sheets are hard figures to fudge.

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  • 9
    JC Sheepdog says:

    Yup, this worst example of a toffee nosed pom has been here, telling us grubby fingered peasants and transportees to mind our manners and accept what our betters tell us.

    Our Murdoch’s Poodle of a Prime Minister positively fawned over him as well.

    It is all very depressing.

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