Disturbing new footage shows 13 years of melting of the Greenland ice sheet. This video is assembled from NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) satellite data.
The film reveals how the edges of the ice sheet melt faster than the center, especially where the glacier flows into the sea. Greenland lost 563 cubic miles (2,347 cubic kilometers) of ice between 2010 and 2023, enough ice to fill Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake, new research finds. this greenland ice sheet Its quality has been declining since 1998, according to the agency NOAAit is currently the second largest contributor to sea level rise, behind the expansion of water caused by rising temperatures.
The study was published Dec. 20 in the journal Geophysical Research LettersThere’s more to it than just quantifying ice loss, though. NASA and the European Space Agency have satellites keeping a close eye on the area. ESA’s CryoSat-2 uses radar to measure the height of the Earth’s surface, while NASA’s CryoSat-2 uses radar to measure the height of the Earth’s surface. ICESat-2 Use laser measurements. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages, and the researchers wanted to ensure that both measurements returned similar results and could be combined for greater accuracy.
The results showed that they could: CryoSat-2 and ICESat-2 differed by no more than 3% in their estimates of Greenland ice sheet elevation change. Their joint study showed that the ice sheet had thinned an average of 3.9 feet (1.2 meters) over 13 years.
But this average number masks major differences across the table. The ice sheet edge lost an average of 21 feet (6.4 m). Loss was greatest on the outlet glaciers, with the Zachariae Isstrøm glacier having a maximum loss of 246 feet (75 m). In a new film based on the data, the worst losses are shown in dark red.
CryoSat-2 and ICESat-2 have been operating along the same path since 2020 – a joint effort ESA and NASA to ensure that the data collected by the two satellites can be synchronized at the same time.
“It’s great to see that data from ‘sister missions’ provide a consistent picture of the changes taking place in Greenland,” Thorsten MarkusProject scientists for NASA’s ICESat-2 mission said in a report statement. “Understanding the similarities and differences between radar and lidar ice sheet height measurements allows us to take full advantage of the complementarity of these satellite missions.”