“..We thought it was one of the Earth’s last remaining regions of stable ice.
Now it seems the East Antarctic ice sheet has been losing mass since 2006 ..
.. and could become a significant source of sea level rise, according to data from gravity-measuring satellites.
Previous studies have suggested that the ice sheet was either stable or even gaining ice mass.
Now satellite measurements analysed by Jianli Chen of the Center for Space Research at the University of Texas at Austin and his colleagues ..
.. suggest that the East Antarctic ice sheet is losing at least 5 billion tonnes of mass each year.
“This paper provides the most accurate measurements to date of the current rate of mass loss from Antarctica,” says Eric Steig, a glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle..”
go to source/story>>World’s last bastion of stable ice now thawing – environment – 24 November 2009 – New Scientist
