Ice loss on Greenland and Antarctica is accelerating at three times the rate of mountain ice loss. If it continues, this melting will dominate sea-level rise this century.
Eric Rignot at the University of California, Irvine, and his colleagues compared calculations based on 18 years' worth of data on climate and ice discharge with 8 years' worth of data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, which uses satellite measurements to assess ice mass. The authors estimate that the rate of loss is increasing by around 36.3 gigatonnes of ice a year, with a cumulative loss of 475 gigatonnes in 2006.
At current rates, melting ice sheets, mountain glaciers and ice caps around the world, as well as the thermal expansion of the oceans, could cause sea levels to rise by up to 32 centimetres by mid-century.
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Faster ice melt, higher sea levels. Nature 471, 268 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/471268b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/471268b
