Based on satellite data, a team of researchers reports that the global rate of ice loss has increased by more than 65% over the past two decades. The results of this study are published in The Cryosphere.
For the first time, researchers at the University of Leeds in the UK have used satellite data to study the rate of global ice melt. This study incorporates 215,000 mountain glaciers, the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps, ice shelves around Antarctica, as well as sea ice floating along the Arctic Ocean.
As part of this work, the researchers focused on the years 1994 to 2017. During this period, the rate of melt is believed to have increased by more than 65%, with the loss of about 28 trillion tonnes of ice. To do this, imagine an ice structure the size of the United Kingdom and a hundred meters thick. In gross terms, we have gone from 0.8 trillion tonnes of melted ice per year in the 1990s to 1.3 trillion tonnes per year in 2017.
All structures involved in the study lost ice, but the largest losses are in arctic sea ice (7.6 trillion tonnes) and ice shelves in Antarctica (6.5 trillion tonnes). ). Mountain glaciers lost a total of 6.1 trillion tonnes of ice, the Greenland ice sheet lost 3.8 trillion, while the Antarctic ice sheet lost about 2.5 trillion, still during the same period.
Melting accelerates in Antarctica and Greenland
Aside from the volumes of ice lost, the researchers also note that losses from the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps have accelerated the most. These glacial structures, they explain, now follow the worst global warming scenarios defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Also according to these satellite data, the faster melting rates are mainly caused by warmer air masses (responsible for about 68% of the additional melting). As a reminder, the atmosphere has warmed by 0.26 ° C per decade since the 1980s. The warming of the oceans (+0.12 ° C per decade since the 1980s) has contributed to the rest of the melting, to height of about 32%. The geographic distribution of ice on the planet explains the higher rates of atmospheric melting (not all ice comes into contact with the ocean).
The (dangerous) rise in sea level
During that time, all of that melted ice would have raised sea level by 35 millimeters. Mountain glaciers, which store only 1% of the world’s ice, have contributed about 25% of this rise. The team also points out that every inch of sea level rise puts an estimated one million people living near the coast at risk of displacement.
Finally, they point out that the loss of sea ice does not directly contribute to the rise in sea level. On the other hand, it does have an indirect influence. One of the key roles of Arctic sea ice is indeed to reflect solar radiation back into space. Also, as sea ice shrinks, more solar energy is found in the oceans and the atmosphere, causing the Arctic to warm faster than any other place on the planet.
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