Stop me if you ’ve hear this one before but theice is hump . New findings relinquish on Thursday reveal that a quarter of the ice sheets in West Antarctica , the most vulnerable part of the continent , have destabilized . deoxyephedrine loss has sped up fivefold across the neighborhood ’s most imperiled glaciers in just 25 years .
scientist used 800 million satellite measurement take up since 1992 to reach their ratiocination . The answer , published in Geophysical Research Letters , underscore just how rapid the change taking plaza are and the perils coastal community could face if ice uphold its runaway thaw .
The means that we know the West Antarctic is melting down are manifold . There ’s measurements on the ground , flypast by NASA scientists , and episodic visit by boat . But to get the adult picture , satellites supply a important horizon from quad . Researchers used data point from a suite of European Space Agency planet that have been monitoring Antarctica since 1992 . Those satellite have lasers that measure how high-pitched the ice that covers Antarctica and extends out to sea is , and the 25 years of records in the analysis allow the investigator to see how ice elevation has changed over time . The investigator identify areas where rapid thinning and ice loss occurred as unstable .
Photo: NASA ICE (Flickr)
The good news is that the East Antarctic , the high and cold part of Antarctica ( and which contains most of the continent ’s ice ) , is largely static . Still , what ’s bump in the west is n’t insignificant . The research reveals that the region has pour forth enough ice over the past 25 years to fill Lake Erie near 12 time over . And it gets worse than that !
The findings show that 24 pct of the ice piece of paper is now unstable , with some parts having thinned 400 groundwork over the retiring 25 years alone . That ’s what ice researcher at the University of Leeds and lead author Andy Shepherd called “ over-the-top amounts ” in a press waiver . Extraordinary is not a summit you want to hear in the case of the West Antarctic , though . The imbalance has caused chicken feed from the imperiled Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers , hold back monumental stores of ice on land , to disgorge into the ocean five sentence faster in 2017 compared to 1992 , contribute to an uptick in sea levels .
If those glaciers break up and the ice behind them fall into the ocean , it could enkindle sea levels more than 10 infantry and whole reshape coastlines . The young study is an significant check - in on how close to the edge we might be .
Antarcticaice chicken feed perchance
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