One of the uses of the Earth's many satellites is to measure the glaciers as precisely as possible. Scientists were able to make a pretty good estimate by 1990s and 2000 even if the technology used were far less advanced as compared to today's technology.
Currently, more advanced satellites, sophisticated climate models, and weather stations have aided in collecting more precise data on the measurement of the melting glaciers. In addition to 2019's data scientists have recalculated the data for the amount of ice loss in Greenland since 1972.
Eric Rignot, a French glaciologist from the University of California in Irvine, has pointed out how shockingly scary it is to see how fast the glaciers have changed over several decades. Rignot Further added that this change is true not only for the warmer parts in the south but actually for the four corners of Greenland. The three methods used by glaciologists to measure the melting ice is first by laser, second by measuring variations in gravity, and third by using mass balance models.
The team used a combination of these three methods and the medium-quality satellite photos from the 1970s and 1980s to reconstruct Greenland's ice levels for the said years. The team has come up with shocking results from the models that have been generated. Perhaps the most alarming one is that Greenland accumulated 47 gigatonnes of ice per year on average in the 1970s only to lose the same amount of ice in the 1980s.
The rate of losing ice was consistent through the 1990s. In the 2000s a sharp acceleration in the rate of ice loss was seen at 187 Gt/year and at 286 GT per year in 2010. The researchers have estimated that ice in Greenland is melting six times faster than it was in 1980s. This has contributed to a 13.7-millimeter rise in sea level since 1972.
Colin Summerhays, from the Scott Polar research institute in Cambridge, regards the data as an excellent piece of work that used noble methods to extract more information from the data available. The new study is said to afford the longer-term view of the rapid ice melt in Greenland in recent years. A similar study is being carried out by the same team on Antarctica.
Amber Leeson, a lecturer in the Environmental Data Science at Lancaster University, explains that the new data better enables researchers to put recent dramatic changes to Greenland's contribution to global sea level rise into a longer-term context.
