ADVANCES
4 Science Bulletin, May-June 2014
By Grant Regen
Antarctic Ice Alert
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) new Cryosat spacecraft has identified an uncomfortable measurement on Antarctic ice loss. According to its data, 160 billion tons of ice is melted each year. This is only a measurement of three main Antarctic areas too, which means even more ice is melting. Cryosat estimates that each year this amounts to an annual 0.43mm of global sea rise. Other recent studies point to even more bad news: the glacial diminishment is bound to continue. Most affected by this melting is the western cost of Antarctica which accounts for an overall 134 tons. This area contains six large glaciers that are heavily affected. Around 90% of all of the western ice loss actually originates from these glaciers. And even more disturbing is Smith Glacier which currently loses nine meters of surface ice a year. With its double antenna system, Cryosat can detect and survey steep slopes easily. High slope glaciers are most affected by heating but also hardest to survey. The Antarctic Peninsula that is mostly rugged was fully recorded by the satellite and found to be currently losing twenty three tons of ice. These statistics show us that our race needs to stop changing our earth because this is only the beginning.
Joe Mastroianni, National Science Foundation