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 06 July 2008 01:17 BST

Antarctic ice loss 'increasing'

Monday, 14 Jan 2008 08:12
Loss of Antarctic ice sheet increased by 75 per cent from 1996 to 2006
The mass loss of the Antarctica ice sheet increased by 75 per cent in the ten years to 2006, scientists have warned.

Professor Jonathan Bamber from the University of Bristol and colleagues estimated the flux of ice from the ice sheet into the ocean using satellite date that cover 85 per cent of Antarctica's coastline.

They say there was a loss of 132 billion tonnes of ice in 2006 from West Antarctica, up from about 83 billion tonnes in 1996.

There was also a loss of about 60 billion tonnes in 2006 from the Antarctic Peninsula.

"To put these figures into perspective, four billion tons of ice is enough to provide drinking water for the whole of the UK population for one year," Professor Bamber said.

The ice mass in East Antarctica has been roughly stable, the scientists claim, with neither loss nor accumulation over the decade to 2006.

However they warn that the thinning of its potentially vulnerable marine sectors suggests this may change in the near future.

Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers say changes in glacier dynamics are significant and could dominate the ice sheet mass.

Ice loss is concentrated at narrow glacier outlets with accelerating ice flow, which they say suggests glacier flow has altered the mass balance of the entire ice sheet.
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