Thursday 27 April 2023

Satellites confirm 2.7tn tonnes of glacier ice lost in 10 years

Satellite pictures have shown that in 10 years, the 200,000 glaciers on Earth have lost more than 2.7 trillion tonnes of ice from climate change.

Scientists have seen the images taken by the European Space Agency’s Cryosat spacecraft, which have revealed that these glaciers have lost 2% of their bulk within the decade.

Published in the Geophysical Research Letters, a study found that 89% of the ice loss is due to climate change, with Alaska losing the most at 80 billion tonnes each year.

Global warming is the key contributor, the researchers say, leading to melting ice reaching oceans and increasing sea level rises.

Noel Gourmelen from Edinburgh University who worked on the study, said: “Usually, the surface waters of the Arctic Ocean are cold and fresh but increasingly in some of these places the surface waters are becoming more salty and warmer as currents move up from the Atlantic. And this means glaciers are dumping more ice into the ocean.”