2 Trillion Tons Of Ice Gone Since 2003

"More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Alaska and Antarctica have been lost since 2003 due to melting, according to new NASA satellite data. It’s the latest round of evidence of the toll global warming is taking around the world, and scientists say this is just the beginning.

More than half of the loss of landlocked ice in the past five years occurred in Greenland, and the rate of ice melt seems to be accelerating. NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke says the water melting from Greenland between 2003 and 2008 would fill up about 11 Chesapeake Bays.

That’s not the only bad news that will be presented today at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Other research points to more melting concerns from global warming, especially with sea ice. Scientists are expected to announce that parts of the Arctic north of Alaska were 9 to 10 degrees warmer this past fall, which is a strong early indication of what researchers call the Arctic amplification effect. That’s when the Arctic warms faster than predicted and warming there is accelerating faster than elsewhere around the world."

ORIGINAL SOURCE: Earth First