Is polar ice melting? Unfortunately, yes. And it’s the number one contributor to sea level rise. NASAClimate scientist Dr. Brooke Medley tells us how NASA studies the relationship between ice sheets and sea level to better understand our changing planet.
Antarctica is losing ice mass at an average rate of about 150 billion tons per year, and Greenland is losing about 270 billion tons per year, adding to sea level rise.
Data from NASA's GRACE and GRACE Follow-On satellites show that the land ice sheets in both Antarctica and Greenland have been losing mass since 2002. The GRACE mission ended in June 2017. The GRACE Follow-On mission began collecting data in June 2018 and is continuing to monitor both ice sheets. This record includes new data-processing methods and is continually updated as more numbers come in, with a delay of up to two months.
This is important because the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica store about two-thirds of all the fresh water on Earth. They are losing ice due to the ongoing warming of Earth’s surface and ocean. Meltwater coming from these ice sheets is responsible for about one-third of the global average rise in sea level since 1993.
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