Ecology
Although many of us aim to lose weight in the new year, losing weight today is not a problem at all for glaciers and polar caps.
Each year, glaciers lose 134 billion tons, or about 163 cubic kilometers, of ice, which melts at a relatively high rate. And this does not include the glaciers and ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. They melt another 80 million tons of ice, and water is sent to the ocean every year. This data was obtained by researchers at the University of Colorado and published in the journal Nature.
Glacier losses were eight times the volume of Lake Erie's water between 2003 and 2008, said study author John Wahr, a professor of physics at the University of Colorado at Boudler. “The total amount of ice that melted from 2003 to 2010 would cover the entire US with 0.46 meters of water,” he said.
This meltwater raises sea levels by 0.4 millimeters every year. And if you take all the meltwater from around the world, the sea level rises by 1.5 millimeters every year. That is, between 2003 and 2010, the level rose by 12 millimeters. About half of this water has evaporated due to global warming.
Satellite systems for studying climate and gravitational disturbances have made it possible to measure the reduction in the amount of ice in the world's glaciers, as well as to record a rise in sea level. Past studies have been based on assessing the melting of ice on the surface of a relatively small number of sources.
The new system consists of 2 satellites that orbit the Earth at a distance of 483 kilometers 16 times a day. These satellites record the smallest changes in Earth's mass and gravity. Research has helped not only understand how the mass of glaciers is changing, but also how the coldest regions of the planet react to global warming, scientists said.
It is not yet known how the rate of ice melting will change over the coming decades. It is very difficult to make such predictions. Scientists are interested in the question of how sea levels will change this century. Researchers believe they could learn to control sea levels if they better understand the physical mechanisms that cause sea levels to rise.