Recent Sea-Level Contributions of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets

摘要: After a century of polar exploration, the past decade satellite measurements has painted an altogether new picture how Earth's ice sheets are changing. As global temperatures have risen, so rates snowfall, melting, and glacier flow. Although balance between these opposing processes varied considerably on regional scale, data show that Antarctica Greenland each losing mass overall. Our best estimate their combined imbalance is about 125 gigatons per year ice, enough to raise sea level by 0.35 millimeters year. This only modest contribution present rate sea-level rise 3.0 However, much loss from result flow ocean streams glaciers, which accelerated over decade. In both continents, there suspected triggers for discharge-surface warming, respectively-and, course 21st century, could rapidly counteract snowfall gains predicted coupled climate models.