The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass at an accelerating pace, according to a new NASA-funded satellite study. The findings of the study suggest these ice sheets are overtaking ice los from Earth's mountain glaciers and ice caps to become the dominant contributor to global sea level rise, much sooner then model forecasts have predicted. The study, led by the U.S. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was published in Geophysical Research Letters.
The authors conclude that, if current ice sheet melting rates continue for the next 4 decades, their cumulative loss could raise sea level by 15 centimeters by 2050. When this is added to the predicted sea level contribution of 8 centimeters from glacial ice caps and 9 centimeters from ocean thermal expansion, total sea level rise could reach 32 centimeters.
The rate of human-caused warming is itself projected to accelerate, and the poles are the place where the planet is heating up the most, much faster than expected. Eric Rignot said that if present trends continue, sea level is likely to be significantly higher than levels projected by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007.
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