Melting Discovered in East Antarctic Region Holding Ice 'Equivalent to Four Greenlands'
12 December 2018
Climate
The Vanderford glacier in East Antarctica is one of four that is beginning to melt, according to NASA. Angela Wylie / Fairfax Media / Fairfax Media via Getty Images
Ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica have been melting at alarming rates in recent years, but at least the glaciers of East Antarctica were believed to be relatively stable. Until now. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) scientists have discovered that glaciers covering one-eighth of Antarctica's eastern coast have lost ice in the past 10 years. If the region keeps melting, it has enough ice in its drainage basins to add 28 meters (approximately 92 feet) to global sea level rise, BBC News reported.
<p>"That's the water equivalent to four Greenlands of ice," Catherine Walker from Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who presented the new findings at the <a href="https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm18/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/454799" target="_blank">Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU)</a> Monday, told BBC News.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="282c6" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="QFS6251576663303"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1072189924215009281" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">As the climate warms, Antarctica has been melting unevenly. Some areas like the Antarctic Peninsula & West Antarcti… https://t.co/Wyl7XO3ZcI</div> — NASA Earth (@NASA Earth)<a href="https://twitter.com/NASAEarth/statuses/1072189924215009281">1544464972.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p>The observations were enabled by maps of the height and velocity of East Antarctic glaciers made possible by a new NASA project called Inter-mission Time Series of Land Ice Velocity and Elevation (ITS_LIVE). Using these maps, Walker discovered that the surface height of four glaciers in Vincennes Bay—Vanderford Glacier, Adams Glacier, Bond Glacier and Underwood Glacier—had decreased by around nine feet since 2008. Before that, there was no noticeable change, <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2832/more-glaciers-in-east-antarctica-are-waking-up/" target="_blank">NASA explained in a press release</a>.<br></p><p>The four glaciers are all west of Totten Glacier, the one East Antarctic glacier that scientists had studied in depth. It has also been retreating in recent years and contains enough ice to raise sea levels by 11 feet.</p><p>"Totten is the biggest glacier in East Antarctica, so it attracts most of the research focus," Walker said in the NASA release. "But once you start asking what else is happening in this region, it turns out that other nearby glaciers are responding in a similar way to Totten."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODk5NTkwOS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNDc4MTIxOH0.yToV1XbOOfEVG5pwYJaEqEESauC5GbJWmrUgVUVI47c/img.png?width=980" id="b7881" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ef1dffd29c0647e8dd9827d3cd53bdcc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">A map produced by Alex Gardner, showing the increased velocity of glaciers in East Antarctica using data from an early iteration of NASA MEaSUREs ITS_LIVE project.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">NASA Earth Observatory / Joshua Stevens</small></p><p>Walker and her team also noted changes in a group of glaciers farther east along the Wilkes Land coast. They are now lowering at twice the rate they did in 2009, to the tune of about 0.8 feet per year.</p><p>In addition to the new ice maps, Walker also used an inventive method to assess ocean temperatures in the area to confirm that warmer water was behind the glaciers' movements. She tagged marine mammals with sensors and compared the measurements with models to determine that changes in wind and sea ice were indeed conspiring to bring more warm ocean water to the Wilkes Land and Vincennes Bay glaciers. </p><p>Her NASA colleague Alex Gardner said that more findings like this were likely as projects like ITS_LIVE expand. In 2019, ITS_LIVE researchers will start a massive effort to track the world's ice, including a 30-year-database of satellite observations of surface elevation and a five-year record of ice velocity.</p><p>"I think we can anticipate that over the next five to 10 years, we're going to have a lot of observationally driven discoveries, such as what Catherine is making, because of the new data that's coming online," Gardner told BBC News.</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="0fee4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="QTZ2OK1576663303"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1007587300434415618" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Antarctic Ice Melt Has Tripled in Five Years https://t.co/Oj6n6NzF6l @zerocarbonworld @Climate_Rescue</div> — EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)<a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/statuses/1007587300434415618">1529062507.0</a></blockquote></div>
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In 2018, the Arctic region had the second-lowest overall sea-ice coverage on record. NOAAPMEL / YouTube
The Arctic is still warming at twice the rate of anywhere else on Earth, and the region's air temperatures in the past five years between 2014-2018 have exceeded all previous records since 1900, according to a peer-reviewed report released by the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Tuesday.
The agency's 13th annual Arctic Report Card also concluded that 2018 was second only to 2016 in terms of the region's overall warmth.
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Rising temperatures have resulted in rapid loss of sea ice."In 2018 Arctic sea ice remained younger, thinner, and covered less area than in the past. The 12 lowest extents in the satellite record have occurred in the last 12 years," the report said.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="84412" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="C81FWW1576662607"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1072533279268581376" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The annual @NOAA Arctic Report Card is available today for 2018. It discusses recent changes in the Arctic, extreme… https://t.co/kMFkopNEnN</div> — Zack Labe (@Zack Labe)<a href="https://twitter.com/ZLabe/statuses/1072533279268581376">1544546835.0</a></blockquote></div>
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This long-term warming trend has also resulted in "new issues ... that we weren't really anticipating," Emily Osborne, an official with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who presented the Arctic report card, said at a Tuesday
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akhYxTTZEts" target="_blank">interview</a> at the American Geophysical Union conference in Washington.
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<span></span>For instance, NOAA scientists observed that melting sea ice has led to the increasing presence of harmful toxic <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/algae-blooms" target="_blank">algal blooms</a> in the Arctic Ocean that threatens food sources.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODk5NDA5OC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMzQ4Nzc1N30.7ZfQWNtdSqaJHNDedrkTP7nJtdf85HimYOrT54rCtHM/img.png?width=980" id="26110" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6e47581bbe284f02a46b2f00b167a6dc" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">The 2018 Arctic Report Card found the Arctic region had the second-lowest overall sea-ice coverage on record.The map shows the age of sea ice in the Arctic ice pack in March 1985 (left) and March 2018 (right). Ice that is less than a year old is darkest blue. Ice that has survived at least 4 full ye</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">NOAA / Climate.gov</small></p><p>Other noticeable changes driven by Arctic warming include declining terrestrial snow cover, the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and lake ice and increasing summertime Arctic river discharge, the report revealed.<br></p><p>
While the Arctic has become more green and opened more vegetation for grazing, NOAA pointed out that herd populations of caribou and wild reindeer across the tundra have declined by nearly 50 percent in the past two decades.
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In the Bering Sea off Alaska's west coast, "ocean primary productivity levels in 2018 were sometimes 500 percent higher than normal levels and linked to a record low sea ice extent in the region for virtually the entire 2017/18 ice season," according to the report.
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</p><div id="f7d7b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3M1GJT1576662607"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1072509494129770499" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Bering Sea ice extent extremely low, tracking with last year & 2013 for lowest in early Dec. Chukchi Sea ice slowin… https://t.co/DyUEOoabOU</div> — Rick Thoman (@Rick Thoman)<a href="https://twitter.com/AlaskaWx/statuses/1072509494129770499">1544541164.0</a></blockquote></div>
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NOAA also warned that microplastic contamination is on the rise in the Arctic, posing a threat to seabirds and marine life that can ingest debris.
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In response to the report card, conservation groups pointed out that the consequences of a warming Arctic go beyond the region.
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"This is yet another stark reminder of climate change's indelible mark on our world. Warming temperatures are thawing permafrost and shrinking Arctic sea ice. These changes rob wildlife species of their habitat, and raise sea levels around the world, affecting communities from Nome to New Orleans," Margaret Williams, managing director of the
<a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/" target="_blank">World Wildlife Fund</a>'s U.S. Arctic programs, said in an <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/wwf-statement-on-noaa-s-2018-arctic-report-card" target="_blank">online statement</a>.
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Williams added, "The devastating hurricanes in the southeastern U.S. and deadly wildfires in California have shown that impacts of climate change are catastrophic and costly. We know those impacts are coming faster than expected, and we know that current efforts to reduce greenhouse gases are not enough to slow the train. The good news is it's not too late to correct the course. As leaders meet this week at the UN climate talks in Poland, we urge them to run, not crawl, towards reducing emissions and accelerating a clean energy transition. Our Earth, and all species that call it home, depend on it."
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Watch this NOAA video about the Arctic Report Card:
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<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="418c643b2736534faa091962dac1d87b"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XntO9a-NpeM?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Arctic Report Card 2018</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XntO9a-NpeM" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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Birthday Canyon on the Greenland Ice Sheet. James Balog / Getty Images
The first continuous, multi-century study of surface melt from the Greenland ice sheet was published in Nature Wednesday, and the results are clear: the ice sheet is now melting at rates unseen within at least the last 350 years.
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"Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet has gone into overdrive. As a result, Greenland melt is adding to sea level more than any time during the last three and a half centuries, if not thousands of years," lead study author and Rowan University School of Earth & Environment glaciologist Luke Trusel said in a <a href="http://www.whoi.edu/news-release/greenland-ice-sheet-melt-off-the-charts-compared-with-past-four-centuries" target="_blank">press release</a> from the <a href="http://www.whoi.edu/" target="_blank">Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution</a> (WHOI), one of the institutions involved in the research.
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<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d8205e4b25c0967ab5e40d5ecfe365a1"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HuDd3AakXrw?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Greenland is Melting Faster than Ever</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuDd3AakXrw" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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The researchers found that melting first increased on the ice sheet in the 1800s, when the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/arctic" target="_self">Arctic</a> began to warm as the process of industrialization started pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. However, it is only in recent decades that the melting has increased beyond the point of natural variability. There is now 50 percent more meltwater runoff entering the oceans from the sheet since the start of the industrial era, and 30 percent more since the 20th century.<br>
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"From a historical perspective, today's melt rates are off the charts, and this study provides the evidence to prove this," WHOI glaciologist and study author Sarah Das said.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="8c3d0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="BONF521576662437"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1070377440596426753" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">#Greenland's ice is melting more rapidly in recent decades than at any point in at least the last 350 years, and li… https://t.co/7aup1MfLn9</div> — Luke Trusel (@Luke Trusel)<a href="https://twitter.com/highlatitude/statuses/1070377440596426753">1544032843.0</a></blockquote></div>
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The researchers were able to prove what many had sensed through observation by using a novel method, as the WHOI explained:<br>
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To determine how intensely Greenland ice has melted in past centuries, the research team used a drill the size of a traffic light pole to extract ice cores from the ice sheet itself and an adjacent coastal ice cap, at sites more than 6,000 feet above sea level. The scientists drilled at these elevations to ensure the cores would contain records of past melt intensity, allowing them to extend their records back into the 17th century. During warm summer days in Greenland, melting occurs across much of the ice sheet surface. At lower elevations, where melting is the most intense, meltwater runs off the ice sheet and contributes to sea level rise, but no record of the melt remains. At higher elevations, however, the summer meltwater quickly refreezes from contact with the below-freezing snowpack sitting underneath. This prevents it from escaping the ice sheet in the form of runoff. Instead, it forms distinct icy bands that stack up in layers of densely packed ice over time.
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Using ice cores allowed the researchers to provide more historical context than the satellite data they had relied on up until now to judge melt rates, which only goes back to the 1970s.
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"We have had a sense that there's been a great deal of melting in recent decades, but we previously had no basis for comparison with melt rates going further back in time," study author and MIT-WHOI graduate student Matt Osman said. "By sampling ice, we were able to extend the satellite data by a factor of 10 and get a clearer picture of just how extremely unusual melting has been in recent decades compared to the past."
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The research has troubling implications for future <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">sea level rise</a>, because it shows that the ice sheet isn't melting at a steady rate. Instead, each degree of warming increases the amount of melting, meaning the more the planet warms, the more sensitive the ice sheet will be.
</p><p>
"Even a very small change in temperature caused an exponential increase in melting in recent years," Das said. "So the ice sheet's response to human-caused warming has been non-linear."
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Trusel summed up the implications:
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"Warming means more today than it did in the past," he said.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
</p><div id="ec8cc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8QUOAV1576662437"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1070394905971843076" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">.@RowanUniversity's @highlatitude: "Warming means more today than it did in the past. What we do now and in the fut… https://t.co/Mfe2lX9580</div> — Climate Strategy (@Climate Strategy)<a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateSt/statuses/1070394905971843076">1544037007.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p></p><p> The research is in keeping with estimates that global sea levels will rise by eight to 12 inches by 2050, but University of Lincoln climate scientist Edward Hanna, who was not involved with the study, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05122018/greenland-ice-sheet-melting-tipping-points-sea-level-rise-climate-change-arctic-warming" target="_blank">told InsideClimateNews</a> that sea level rise projections might have to be increased if Greenland keeps melting.</p><p>"We can't rule out that the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/" target="_blank">IPCC</a> (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) sea level rise scenarios are too conservative," Hanna said. "Greenland is a bit like a sleeping giant that is awakening. Who knows how it will respond to a couple of more degrees of warming? It could lose a lot of mass very quickly."</p>
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