Ice2sea researchers part of landmark study to improve projections for future sea level
PR No. 03/2012
An international team of satellite experts including several supported by ice2sea has produced the most accurate assessment of ice losses from Antarctica and Greenland to date, ending 20-years of uncertainty.
In a landmark study, published on 30 November in the journal Science, the researchers show that melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has contributed 11.1 millimetres to global sea levels since 1992. This amounts to one fifth of all sea level rise over the survey period (1992 – present day).
About two thirds of the ice loss was from Greenland, and the remainder was from Antarctica.
Although the ice sheet losses fall within the range reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007, the spread of the IPCC estimate was so broad that it was not clear whether Antarctica was growing or shrinking. The new estimates are a vast improvement (more than twice as accurate) thanks to the inclusion of more satellite data, and confirm that both Antarctica and Greenland are losing ice.
The study also shows that the combined rate of ice sheet melting has increased over time and, altogether, Greenland and Antarctica are now losing more than three times as much ice (equivalent to 0.95 mm of sea level rise per year) as they were in the 1990s (equivalent to 0.27 mm of sea level rise per year).
The Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE) is a collaboration between 47 researchers from 26 laboratories, and was supported by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The study combines observations from 10 different satellite missions to develop the first consistent measurement of polar ice sheet changes. The researchers were able to understand the apparent differences between dozens of earlier ice sheet studies through careful use of matching time periods and survey areas, and by combining measurements collected by different types of satellites.
Professor David Vaughan, leader of ice2sea, said: “This new understanding of what is currently happening in terms of ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica now allows us to make robust projections for future sea levels. In the past this lack of accuracy has been a key stumbling block for our work investigating sea-level rise.”
Professor Andrew Shepherd at the University of Leeds coordinated the study. He said: “The success of this venture is due to the cooperation of the international scientific community, and due to the provision of precise satellite sensors by our space agencies. Without these efforts, we would not be in a position to tell people with confidence how the Earth’s ice sheets have changed, and to end the uncertainty that has existed for many years.”
The study also found differences in the pace of change at each pole.
Dr Erik Ivins at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory also coordinated the project, said: “The rate of ice loss from Greenland has increased almost five-fold since the mid-1990s. In contrast, while the regional changes in Antarctic ice over time are sometimes quite striking, the overall balance has remained fairly constant – at least within the certainty of the satellite measurements we have to hand.”
Ice2sea is funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)
ENDS
A reconciled estimate of ice sheet mass balance: A. Shepherd et al is published in Science on 30 November 2012, DOI: 10.1126/science.1228102. For a copy of the paper please visit the website http://www.eurekalert.org/jrnls/sci/ (access granted to journalists registered with Science) or contact the Science press team, phone +1 202-326-6440 or email scipak@aaas.org
13 IMBIE authors are also contributing to ice2sea.
Scientist contacts:
Professor David Vaughan, Leader of the ice2sea programme, British Antarctic Survey (UK)
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 221643; mobile: +44 (0) 7729 425 260; email: david.vaughan@bas.ac.uk
To request an interview with Prof Andrew Shepherd, School of Earth & Environment, University of Leeds, please contact Esther Harward, University of Leeds Communications Office
Tel: +44 (0) 113 343 4196; email: e.harward@leeds.ac.uk
Ice2sea Press Office contact:
Heather Martin
Tel: +44 (0)1223 221226; mobile: 07740 822 229, email: heather.martin@bas.ac.uk
Notes for editors:
The following restricted access website contains more information about the study, including images and multimedia for journalists to download: www.imbie.org/news/press. Password: penguin
The ten satellite missions providing data for this study are the first and second ESA European Remote Sensing satellites (ERS-1 and ERS-2); the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Advanced Land Observatory System (ALOS) ; the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) RADARSAT-1 and RADARSAT-2 satellites; the NASA Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat); the ESA Envisat satellite; the NASA / German Aerospace Center (DLR) Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE); the Italian Space Agency (ASI) COSMO-SkyMed satellite, and the DLR TerraSAR-X satellite.
IMBIE was created by ESA and NASA. The study was also supported by a Phillip Leverhulme Prize awarded to Professor Andy Shepherd, the EU FP7 ice2sea program, the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, the Netherlands Polar Program, the UK Natural Environment Research Council, and the US National Science Foundation.
Ice2sea brings together the EU’s scientific and operational expertise from 24 leading institutions across Europe and beyond. Improved projections of the contribution of ice to sea-level rise produced by this major European-funded programme will inform the fifth IPCC report (due in 2013). In 2007, the fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report highlighted ice-sheets as the most significant remaining uncertainty in projections of sea-level rise. Understanding about the crucial ice-sheet effects was “too limited to assess their likelihood or provide a best estimate of an upper bound for sea-level rise”.
Ice sheet – the huge mass of ice, up to 4 km thick that covers bedrock in Antarctica or Greenland. It flows from the centre of the continent towards the coast where it feeds ice shelves.
