Antarctica is melting more than six times faster than it did in the 1980s, a new study shows.
Scientists used aerial photographs, satellite measurements and computer models to track how fast the southern-most continent has been melting since 1979 in 176 individual basins. They found the ice loss to be accelerating dramatically — a key indicator of human-caused climate change.
Since 2009, Antarctica has lost almost 278 billion tons (252 billion metric tons) of ice per year, the new study found. In the 1980s, it was losing 44 billion tons (40 billion metric tons) a year.
The recent melting rate is 15 percent higher than what a study found last year.
Eric Rignot, a University of California, Irvine, ice scientist, was the lead author on the new study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He said the big difference is that his satellite-based study found East Antarctica, which used to be considered stable, is losing 56 billion tons (51 billion metric tons) of ice a year. Last year’s study, which took several teams’ work into consideration, found little to no loss in East Antarctica recently and gains in the past.
Melting in West Antarctica and the Antarctica Peninsula account for about four-fifths of the ice loss. East Antarctica’s melting “increases the risk of multiple meter (more than 10 feet) sea level rise over the next century or so,” Rignot said.
Richard Alley, a Pennsylvania State University scientist not involved in Rignot’s study, called it “really good science.”
I have a friend in the oil industry who's been drilling up in Siberia. The way he tells it, Russia is generally a fan of climate change because it'll open up access to a shitload of previously inaccessible natural resources out in the Siberian tundra. Also, Russia and many other nations would have a lot to gain by the Northwest Passage opening up.
Climate change makes people more money? Yup were fucked.
Ayden Campbell
geoengineed by the jews
Jose Anderson
………..those who claim climate change is untrue
also claim trump is an effective president…………
Adam Davis
Unless of course the direction the climate change is towards global cooling. Then the Russians will be fucked and the Middle east will become fertile.
Camden Turner
See, when i was a kid there were these things called SEASONS… and there were FOUR of them. They were each unique from one another, and they each lasted THREE MONTHS….
I had a front row seat to the one generation that it took for those four seasons to become TWO.
spring and fall each last about 45 minutes.
with all of the other destructive shit we've done to this planet, it would be stupid as shit to assume that we arent also responsible for the destruction of our climate through the pollution of our atmosphere.
Ryder Gutierrez
Yeah when I was a kid the evenings went on forever. Nobody locked their door and we never had any crime or black people. And the good guys always won like in the movies.
Its called nostaliga mate.
David Taylor
i call it a 'blessing'
i consider myself quite fortunate that i got to experience life before it became unrecognizable
Jayden Long
we didnt know how much ice it was losing in the 80s. we didnt know in the 90s. and we can barely estimate right now.
fuck these liars.
Anthony Russell
By the way, my wife and i still sleep with our doors unlocked, the good guys still win in movies, and the nights last the exact same amount of time as they always have.
however, you can only fart into a balloon so many times, and in the past 50 years (a very short amount of time) the human race has managed to treat our atmosphere like an infinite toxic landfill, effectively tipping the scales with our seasons, and the future of my children and grandchildren will hang in the balance.
