- Antarctica is hurling its guts into the ocean. And it’s happening six times faster now than it was even four decades ago. The southern, frozen continent lost an average of 252 gigatons of ice a year to the sea between 2009 and 2017. Between 1979 and 1990, it lost an average of just 40 gigatons per year. That means that ice loss on Antarctica has accelerated by 6.3 times in just four decades, according to new research published yesterday (Jan. 14) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- Ice loss in Antarctica is a big deal. As the sea ice at the North Pole melts away, the melting causes negative consequences and ripple effects for the global climate. However, that melting doesn’t directly raise sea levels. North polar ice is already floating on the ocean, so turning it from solid to liquid doesn’t add to the total volume of water in the seas.
- But Antarctica is a landmass buried beneath ice. And it holds the largest reserve of frozen, landlocked water anywhere on the planet. Any ice loss on Antarctica directly contributes to the total volume of water in the oceans, and raises sea levels.
- 252 gigatons a year is a meaningful number when it comes to sea levels. A gigaton is a billion metric tons, and each metric ton is 2,204 pounds — a bit less than the weight of a small car. Each gigaton of ice that flows into the ocean is roughly equivalent in mass to about 720 million Toyota Prius-size vehicles flung overboard.
- In coming decades, as Earth warms even more and the ice melts faster, that rise will increase dramatically, the researchers wrote in the study. Fractions of inches could turn into meters of sea level rise. But the 40-year view offered by this paper shows that whatever variability Antarctica might have year to year, the long-term behavior of its ice is clear, and dangerous for the rest of the planet.
(Images/video taken from google/IE)
gandi-meteorologicalconsultant 
Leave a comment