NASA: Earth Is Losing Half A Trillion Tons Of Ice A Year

[kristopher]

NASA: Earth Is Losing Half A Trillion Tons Of Ice A Year

By Climate Guest Blogger on Feb 22, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Global Ice Loss from 2003-2010 Could “Cover the Entire United States in One and Half Feet of Water”



...
Using satellite measurements from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), the researchers measured ice loss in all of Earth’s land ice between 2003 and 2010, with particular emphasis on glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica.

The total global ice mass lost from Greenland, Antarctica and Earth’s glaciers and ice caps during the study period was about 4.3 trillion tons (1,000 cubic miles), adding about 0.5 inches (12 millimeters) to global sea level. That’s enough ice to cover the United States 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) deep.

“Earth is losing a huge amount of ice to the ocean annually, and these new results will help us answer important questions in terms of both sea rise and how the planet’s cold regions are responding to global change,” said University of Colorado Boulder physics professor John Wahr, who helped lead the study. “The strength of GRACE is it sees all the mass in the system, even though its resolution is not high enough to allow us to determine separate contributions from each individual glacier.”

About a quarter of the average annual ice loss came from glaciers and ice caps outside of Greenland and Antarctica (roughly 148 billion tons, or 39 cubic miles). Ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica and their peripheral ice caps and glaciers averaged 385 billion tons (100 cubic miles) a year. Results of the study will be published online Feb. 8 in the journal Nature.

Traditional estimates ...

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/02/22/430256/nasa-earth-is-losing-half-a-trillion-tons-of-ice-a-year/

[yardwork]

1. That can't be good. /nt

[joshcryer]

2. Thanks for this. I've been looking for recent GRACE measurements. Damn capitalism.

Capitalism has fucked this planet.

[joshcryer]

3. Per comments, here's a graphic of the Greenland and Antarctic losses:

Original: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/grace20120208bot.html

More importantly, note the scale. Multiples of 3, 6, 9. Image in the OP is 1, 2, 3, etc. Appalling!

[joshcryer]

4. Skeptical Science goes deeper: Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide

http://www.skepticalscience.com/GRACE-and-glaciers.html

INCREDIBLE. FUCK!



And people say, "Oh, but, who cares, right, the models are wrong."

[joshcryer]

5. Scientific reticence and sea level rise

Published 24 May 2007

Abstract. I suggest that a `scientific reticence' is inhibiting the communication of a threat of a potentially large sea level rise. Delay is dangerous because of system inertias that could create a situation with future sea level changes out of our control. I argue for calling together a panel of scientific leaders to hear evidence and issue a prompt plain-written report on current understanding of the sea level change issue.

Scientific reticence may be a consequence of the scientific method. Success in science depends on objective skepticism. Caution, if not reticence, has its merits. However, in a case such as ice sheet instability and sea level rise, there is a danger in excessive caution. We may rue reticence, if it serves to lock in future disasters.

Barber (1961) describes a `resistance by scientists to scientific discovery', with a scholarly discussion of several sources of cultural resistance. There are aspects of the phenomenon that Barber discusses in the `scientific reticence' that I describe, but additional factors come into play in the case of global climate change and sea level rise.

Another relevant discussion is that of `behavioral discounting' (Hariri et al 2006), also called `delay discounting' (Axtell and McRae 2006). Concern about the danger of `crying wolf' is more immediate than concern about the danger of `fiddling while Rome burns'. It is argued in the referenced discussions that there is a preference for immediate over delayed rewards, which may contribute to irrational reticence even among rational scientists.

I wear my alarmist designation proudly.

[pscot]

6. How much heat does half a trillion tons of ice-melt absorb?

And to what extent is this buffering global warming? Is this significant or marginal?

[GliderGuider]

8. 1.67*10^17 joules.

What does that mean in a big dynamic system like this? Quien sabe?

[joshcryer]

9. I think it's significant, however, it will be displaced by the albedo change.

I think the cooler winters are due to the melting. We do know that Greenland loss its ice sheet in under a century, and that was with natural processes.

I expect a significant acceleration once the sea ice is mostly gone. It's going to be quite interesting.

And we'll live to see it.