Polar ice melt accelerates

The Earth's ice sheets are melting three times faster than they were two decades ago, 47 researchers say in a recently published study. The scientists fault human-created global warming for the dramatic increase in melting.

By Seth Borenstein,?Associated Press / November 29, 2012

This July 2012 image shows surface melt water rushing along the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet through a supra-glacial stream channel, southwest of Ilulissat, Greenland. Polar ice sheets are now melting three times faster than in the 1990s, a new giant scientific study says.

AP Photo/Ian Joughin

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Fueled by global warming,?polar?ice?sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are now melting three times faster than they did in the 1990s, a new scientific study says.

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So far, that's only added about half an inch (1.3 centimeters) to rising sea levels, not as bad as some earlier worst case scenarios. But the melting's quicker pace, especially in Greenland, has?ice?scientists worried.

One of the biggest wild cards in climate change has been figuring out how much the melting of the massive sheets of?ice?at the two poles would add to the seas. Until now, researchers haven't agreed on how fast the mile-thick sheets are thawing ? and if Antarctica was even losing?ice.

The new research concludes that Antarctica is melting, but points to the smaller?ice?sheet in Greenland, which covers most of the island, as the bigger and more pressing issue. Its melt rate has grown from about 55 billion tons a year in the 1990s to almost 290 billion tons a year recently, according to the study.

"Greenland is really taking off," said National Snow and?Ice?Data Center scientist Ted Scambos, a co-author of the paper released Thursday by the journal Science.

Study lead author Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds in England, said their results provide a message for negotiators in Doha, Qatar, who are working on an international agreement to fight global warming: "It's very clear now that Greenland is a problem."

Scientists blame man-made global warming for the melting. Burning fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, emits carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that trap heat, warming the atmosphere and oceans. Bit-by-bit, that erodes the?ice?sheets from above and below. Snowfall replenishes the?ice?sheets, but hasn't kept pace with the rate of melting.

Because the world's oceans are so big, it takes a lot of?ice?melting ? about 10 trillion tons ? to raise sea levels 1 inch (2.5 centimeters). Since 1992,?ice?sheets at the poles have lost nearly 5 trillion tons of?ice, the study says, raising sea levels by about a half inch.

That seemingly tiny extra bit probably worsened the flooding from an already devastating Superstorm Sandy last month, said NASA?ice?scientist Erik Ivins, another co-author of the study. He said the extra weight gives each wave a little more energy.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/G6J5uc1CA2M/Polar-ice-melt-accelerates

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