Recent sea-level contributions of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets

被引:227
作者
Shepherd, Andrew
Wingham, Duncan
机构
[1] UCL, Ctr Polar Observat & Modeling, Dept Earth Sci, London WC1E 6BT, England
[2] Univ Edinburgh, Ctr Polar Observat & Modeling, Sch Geosci, Edinburgh EH8 9XP, Midlothian, Scotland
基金
英国自然环境研究理事会;
关键词
D O I
10.1126/science.1136776
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
After a century of polar exploration, the past decade of satellite measurements has painted an altogether new picture of how Earth's ice sheets are changing. As global temperatures have risen, so have rates of snowfall, ice melting, and glacier flow. Although the balance between these opposing processes has varied considerably on a regional scale, data show that Antarctica and Greenland are each losing mass overall. Our best estimate of their combined imbalance is about 125 gigatons per year of ice, enough to raise sea level by 0.35 millimeters per year. This is only a modest contribution to the present rate of sea-level rise of 3.0 millimeters per year. However, much of the loss from Antarctica and Greenland is the result of the flow of ice to the ocean from ice streams and glaciers, which has accelerated over the past decade. In both continents, there are suspected triggers for the accelerated ice discharge-surface and ocean warming, respectively- and, over the course of the 21st century, these processes could rapidly counteract the snowfall gains predicted by present coupled climate models.
引用
收藏
页码:1529 / 1532
页数:4
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