MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Greenland loosing mass faster than anticipated

The ice sheet contains enough water to cause a global sea level rise of seven meters.

The Greenland ice sheet is losing mass faster than first thought, contributing to an increasing rate of sea level rise, according to a Bristol University scientist.

Satellite data and a state-of-the-art computer model suggest that sea levels rose by 0.75mm per year between 2006 and 2008 – up from an average of 0.46mm per year between 2000 and 2008.

Writing in the journal Science, Professor Jonathan Bamber said that the Greenland ice sheet contained enough water to cause a global sea level rise of seven meters.

Since 2000, the ice sheet has lost about 1500 Gt in total – where 1Gt is the mass of one cubic kilometer of water – at an average of 187.5 Gt per year. Recent warm summers have accelerated this mass loss to 273 Gt per year.

“It is clear from these results that mass loss from Greenland has been accelerating since the late 1990s and the underlying causes suggest this trend is likely to continue in the near future,” said Prof Bamber.

“We have produced agreement between two totally independent estimates, giving us a lot of confidence in the numbers and our inferences about the processes.”

The study said losses of ice from Greenland would have been roughly double recent rates but were masked by more snowfall and a re-freezing of some melt-water before it reached the sea.

The research is a timely reminder to world leaders preparing for the Copenhagen Climate Conference next month that changes to sea levels threaten low-lying communities around the world from increased risks of flooding.

Greenland locks up enough ice to raise world sea levels by seven meters (23 ft) if it thawed. At the other side of the globe, Antarctica contains ice equivalent to 58 meters of sea level rise, according to United Nations estimates.