Summer Sun in Thule
Monday, May 19th, 2014Ah, summer in Greenland. Temparatures in the mid-20’s F and the sun is out — all day. Time to go out and take a stroll.
Let’s verify what Cryosat-2 sees from space. No need to be alarmed. Just follow the little yellow rope back to where you came from.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Antarctica is losing ice at an alarming rate! Read this abstract from Geophysical Research Letters and see what all the fuss is about…
We use 3 years of Cryosat-2 radar altimeter data to develop the first comprehensive assessment of Antarctic ice sheet elevation change. This new dataset provides near-continuous (96%) coverage of the entire continent, extending to within 215 kilometres of the South Pole and leading to a fivefold increase in the sampling of coastal regions where the vast majority of all ice losses occur. Between 2010 and 2013, West Antarctica, East Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula changed in mass by −134 ± 27, −3 ± 36, and −23 ± 18 Gt yr−1 respectively. In West Antarctica, signals of imbalance are present in areas that were poorly surveyed by past missions, contributing additional losses that bring altimeter observations closer to estimates based on other geodetic techniques. However, the average rate of ice thinning in West Antarctica has also continued to rise, and mass losses from this sector are now 31% greater than over the period 2005–2011.
The ESA’s been tracking this for some time and getting something done before summer vacations hit in Europe is an honored tradition.