Antarctica is gaining more ice than it’s losing, warns NASA. More ice is adding to the continent, which began 10,000 years ago. A new NASA study revealed that in the last decades, areas of the continent like Antarctic peninsula have increased their mass loss.
The ice sheet of Antarctica showed a net gain of 112 billion tonnes of ice a year from 1992 to 2001, according to the analysis of satellite data. Between 2003 and 2008, the net gain slowed to 82 billion tonnes of ice per year.
Jay Zwally, glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, said, “We are essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge in the Antarctic peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island region of West Antarctica.” He added,”Here, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.”
It would take only 20 or 30 years for the ice melt in Antarctica to outweigh the ice gains, if it continues, according to Jay Zwally.
Zwally said, “The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 millimeters per year away.”
“But this is also bad news. If the 0.27 millimeters per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for”, Zwally added.
