Antarctica ice loses more than thought - Reuters

: NEW HO / REUTERS

MADRID, Sept. 15 (IRIN) –

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Creating

melting icebergs and causes 2,800 cubic kilometers of ice out of the ice sheet of Antarctica each year. Most of it is replaced by snow but any imbalance contributes to a change in the overall level of the sea. For decades, experts have believed that the most important process responsible for this great loss was the fracture of the iceberg, the breaking of ice blocks on the edge of a glacier.

This study, led by academics from the University of Bristol, in the UK, with colleagues from the University of Utrecht, Netherlands, and the University of California, the United States has used satellite data and climate models to show that this fusion of subplatform has a big impact as a fractured iceberg for Antarctica as a whole and even more important to some areas.

During the last decade, the Antarctic ice sheet has decreased its volume increasing amounts, being the annual loss of ice up to 700 times the four cubic kilometers per year constitute the entire domestic water supply for United UK.

The researchers found that, for some platforms ice melting at the bottom could be responsible for up to 90 percent mass loss, while for other area was only 10 percent.

They detected that the ice shelves already thinner were losing most of its mass of this merger, so they understand that a good indicator that ice shelves may be particularly vulnerable to changes in ocean warming in the future.

The scientists used data from a number of satellite missions and airborne to accurately measure the flow of ice, elevation and thickness, some observations were combined with climate model results for snowfall over ice layer. Thus, comparing the amount of snow that fell on the surface and accumulation with the amount of ice lost continent, entering the ocean, so you were able to determine the proportion that was lost in each process.

Professor Jonathan Bamber, dde School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, said: “Understanding how the largest ice mass on the planet loses ice in the oceans is one of the most fundamental things we need to know for Antarctica. Until recently, it was assumed that most of the ice is lost through icebergs “.

“Now we realize that the melting under the ice shelves in the ocean is equally important and in some places, much more. Such knowledge is crucial for understanding how ice sheets interact now and how they will in the future with climate change, “he said.