The Antarctic ice sheet is melting twice as fast as the last time it was recorded, according to stark new images taken by the European Space Agency.
Over three years of observations from the ESA's CyroSat-2 satellite show that the Antarctic ice sheet is now losing 159 billion tonnes of ice each year – twice as much as when it was last surveyed in 2010.
The polar ice sheets are a major contributor to the rise in global sea levels, and these newly measured losses from Antarctica alone are enough to raise global sea levels by 0.45 mm each year.
These latest findings by a team of scientists from the UK’s Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling show that the pattern of imbalance continues to be dominated by glaciers thinning in the Amundsen Sea sector of West Antarctica.
Between 2010 and 2013, West Antarctica, East Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula lost 134, 3 and 23 billion tonnes of ice each year, respectively.
The average rate of ice thinning in West Antarctica has increased compared to previous measurements, and this area’s yearly loss is now one third more than measured over the five years before CryoSat’s launch.
This area has long been identified as the most vulnerable to changes in climate. Recent assessments say its glaciers may have passed a point of irreversible retreat.
Dr Malcolm McMillan from the University of Leeds, author of the latest study, said;
Last week, glaciologist Eric Rignot, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said: "The collapse of this sector of West Antarctica appears to be unstoppable," and this latest batch of images from CryoSat-2 supports this theory. The new images appear to confirm what scientists have been fearing, as the report said: