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Environment Counts | Satellite data reveals details of massive ice loss from West Antarctica :

Published by on Tuesday, January 24th, 2017

Published
by geoff
on 2014-10-03
GOCE gravity gradiometry observations have been combined with GRACE gravity data to estimate mass changes in the Amundsen Sea Sector of West Antarctica. The high resolution observations allows land ice changes within the Pine Island Glacier, Thwaites Glacier and Getz Ice Shelf drainage systems to be measured at respectively -67 ± 7, -63 ± 12, and -55 ± 9 gigatonnes per yr (Gt/yr) over November 2009 to June 2012. This is the most accurate pure satellite gravimetry measurement to-date of current mass loss from the Pine Island Glacier. The combined contribution of these basins to sea-level change is 0.51 ± 0.04 mm/yr, which suggests that the ice mass imbalance increased drastically in the period November 2009 to June 2012.

West Antarctica ice loss Nov 2009-June 2012
West Antarctica ice loss Nov 2009-June 2012

The Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) measures gravitational gradients along three orthogonal axes. The Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) is a pair of satellites that measures Earth’s gravity field anomalies. Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/2014GL060637

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