US: Two new scientific studies measuring Greenland's rapidly melting ice sheet and the pace of Antarctic snowfall suggest that the sea level may be rising faster than previously thought.
The papers, both published in the journal Science, provide the latest evidence of how climate change is transforming the global landscape.
University of Texas researchers, using twin satellites, determined that the Greenland ice sheet, the Earth's second-largest reservoir of fresh water, is melting at a rate three times faster than during the previous five years. A separate study by 16 international scientists concluded that Antarctic snowfall accumulation has remained steady over the past 50 years, with no increases which might have mitigated the melting of the ice shelf, as some researchers had assumed would occur.
Taken together, the two reports indicate that global sea level rise may increase more rapidly in the coming years.
Byron Tapley, one of the Greenland study's co-authors, said that the ice loss along the ice sheet's eastern shoreline was particularly significant because it could help to weaken the counterclockwise flow of the North Atlantic current and ultimately make Western European winters colder.