Ice Sheet Melt Increasing Each Year
PASADENA, Cali. (CBSMiami) – A new study in the journal Science has found that the ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica have been melting at an increasing rate over the last 20 years.
The ice sheets at both poles are losing more than three times as much ice each year as they were in the 1990's, according to the study which was conducted by 47 researchers at 26 laboratories around the world.
The ice sheet losses are contributing to a sea level rise of roughly 0.44 inches since 1992, or roughly one-fifth of all sea level rise over the last 20 years. The rest, according to the study, is caused by the thermal expansion of the warming ocean, melting of mountain glaciers and small Arctic ice caps, along with groundwater mining.
"Both ice sheets appear to be losing more ice now than 20 years ago, but the pace of ice loss from Greenland is extraordinary, with nearly a five-fold increase since the mid-1990s," Erik Ivins of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena said.
Ivins continued, "In contrast, the overall loss of ice in Antarctica has remained fairly constant, with the data suggesting a 50-percent increase in Antarctic ice loss during the last decade."
The research findings would tend to support the claim that global warming is not only ongoing, but also increasing over the past two decades.
