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Even prior to this, it was thought that Antarctica was only a small fraction sea level rise at present. Thermal expansion of sea water, melting mountain glacier
by ovis 11y ago
Even prior to this, it was thought that Antarctica was only a small fraction sea level rise at present. Thermal expansion of sea water, melting mountain glaciers, and Greenland appear to contribute far more. The latest IPCC report (Chapter 13, table 13.1) has some good numbers representing the best we knew a couple of years ago.
The impact of this study is that the small mass loss attributed to Antarctica may be a small mass gain.
- epistasis 11y agoI was just in the process of summarizing that table, thanks for bringing it up. The QZ article does not really place this finding in context of what else is going on and what is already known. The current breakdown from IPCC's 5th Assessment Report: 1.1 [0.8 to 1.4] mm per year -- thermal ocean expansion 0.76 [0.39 to 1.13] mm per year -- glacial melt 0.33 [0.25 to 0.41] mm per year -- Greenland ice sheet melt 0.27 [0.16 to 0.38] mm per year -- Antarctic ice sheet melt 0.38 [0.26 to 0.49] mm per year -- land water storage change Sum: 2.8 mm/year Observed: 3.2 mm/year [1] [2] As usual, Wikipedia has good entry level summaries [3] of the high-level info, for those of us that want to get right to the meat. [1] http://imgur.com/vadnlXJ http://imgur.com/vadnlXJ [2] http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5_WGI-12Doc2b_FinalDraft_Chapter13.pdf http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5_WGI-1... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise