• Privacy policy
  • T&C’s
  • FAQ
  • Meet the Team
  • About The London Economic
  • Advertise
TLE ONLINE SHOP!
NEWSLETTER
SUPPORT THE LONDON ECONOMIC
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Film
  • Food
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Film
  • Food
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
No Result
View All Result
Home News Environment

Antarctica ice now unstable as glaciers melt five times as fast as in the 90s

Coastal communities across the planet will be affected.

Ben Gelblum by Ben Gelblum
May 17, 2019
in Environment, World News

A new study has warned that ice glaciers in Antarctica are becoming unstable with a quarter of glaciers now melting in just 25 years.

Ocean melting has caused ice thinning in west Antarctica by up to 122 metres in places. – And the effect is to drive up sea levels affecting coastal communities across the planet.

This has left affected glaciers unstable as they are losing more mass through melting and iceberg calving than they are gaining through snowfall.

Ice is being lost five times more than in 1992, with snowfall failing to restore the Pine Island Glacier and the Thwaites.

RelatedPosts

Navalny ‘could die at any moment’, his doctor says

Biden to scrap Trump’s cap on refugees after backlash

Gunman kills eight in Indianapolis in yet another mass shooting

Adam Toledo: Bodycam footage shows unarmed 13-year-old boy being shot dead by Chicago police

While the majority of the ice sheet has remained stable, a quarter of west Antarctica is “now in a state of dynamical imbalance.”

Melt water from east and west Antarctica have contributed to a 4.6mm – 0.16in – in the rise of the sea level, scientists warn.

Professor Andy Shepherd, director of CPOM, said: “In parts of Antarctica, the ice sheet has thinned by extraordinary amounts.

“We set out to show how much was due to changes in climate and how much was due to weather.”

The study found the most pronounced changes in thickness were signals of glacier imbalance that have persisted for decades.

Professor Shepherd explained: “We can see clearly now that a wave of thinning has spread rapidly across some of Antarctica’s most vulnerable glaciers, and their losses are driving up sea levels around the planet.”

Co-author Dr Marcus Engdahl, of the European Space Agency said: “This is an important demonstration of how satellite missions can help us to understand how our planet is changing.

“The polar regions are hostile environments and are extremely difficult to access from the ground – because of this, the view from space is an essential tool for tracking the effects of climate change.”

The team compared surface height changes to simulated changes in snowfall and credited it to glacier imbalances.

Researchers found that fluctuations in snowfall tended to drive small changes in height over large areas for years at a time.

Satellite images were analysed at the UK Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) based at the University of Leeds

They combined 25 years of European Space Agency satellite altimeter measurements to track changes in ice and snow.

Researchers compared images to a model of Antarctica’s regional climate and found that melting “triggered imbalances”.

The study used more than 800 million measurements recorded by the ERS-1, ERS-2, Envisat, and CryoSat-2 satellites.

Together, these measurements allowed changes in the height of the ice sheet to be separated from those due to weather patterns.

The study was published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters.

By Ben Gelblum and Daniel Hammond

Global warming threat to British frogs
Scientists created green hydrogen fuel from seawater possibly unlocking environmentally friendly energy for all
How the global Youth Strike For Climate shows the future is bright
Tags: headline
Support fearless, free, investigative journalism Support fearless, free, investigative journalism Support fearless, free, investigative journalism

Subscribe to our Newsletter

View our  Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions

Trending fromTLE

  • All
  • trending

What If We Got Rid Of Prisons?

Stress, fear and homelessness: The threat looming over families confronted with eviction

File photo dated 07/11/03 of a prison cell.

The Other Prison Pandemic

Latest from TLE

Lucky Numbers and Horoscopes for today, 20 April 2021

Image by AdobeStock

Weather forecast, alerts and UVB index for London, Tuesday 20 April 2021

TLE drives: The Honda Civic Type R

Adam James: The lone wolf of Saville Row

About Us

TheLondonEconomic.com – Open, accessible and accountable news, sport, culture and lifestyle.

Read more

Address

The London Economic Newspaper Limited t/a TLE
Company number 09221879
International House,
24 Holborn Viaduct,
London EC1A 2BN,
United Kingdom

Contact

Editorial enquiries, please contact: jack@thelondoneconomic.com

Commercial enquiries, please contact: advertise@thelondoneconomic.com

SUPPORT

We do not charge or put articles behind a paywall. If you can, please show your appreciation for our free content by donating whatever you think is fair to help keep TLE growing and support real, independent, investigative journalism.

DONATE & SUPPORT

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.




No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Film
  • Lifestyle
  • Food
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech & Auto
  • About The London Economic
  • Meet the Team
  • Privacy policy

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.