I collected this story for Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Obamafish edition) on Daily Kos. but then decided not to use it as it had been used two days earlier. No wonder I forgot to use it in Climate news from commerical sources for 12/6/12.
Science News: Shrinking polar ice caused one-fifth of sea level rise
Comprehensive analysis quantifies ice sheet loss in Greenland and Antarctica
By Erin Wayman
Web edition: November 29, 2012
Scientists now have one polar ice study to rule them all. An international team of researchers has compiled 20 years of data from 10 satellite missions to create the most comprehensive assessment to date of Greenland’s and Antarctica’s shrinking ice sheets.I'll have more climate news coming up later this week, including a story about the conclusion of the Doha conference.
And the verdict: Between 1992 and 2011, the Greenland ice sheet lost 2,940 billion metric tons of ice while the Antarctic ice sheet shed 1,320 billion metric tons. All that water raised the sea level by an average of 11.1 millimeters, accounting for one-fifth of sea level rise over that period, the team reports in the Nov. 30 Science.
The findings are a good starting point for making improved predictions of future sea level increases. “Our estimates of ice sheet mass loss are the most reliable to date,” says study coleader Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds in England.
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