Melting Ice Sheets

The findings of the study about the Greenland and Antartic ice sheets loosing mass at an accelerating pace suggested that these sheets are overtaking ice loss from Earth's mountain glaciers. It took 20 years to have a study reveal that in 2006, the Antartic ice sheets and the Greenland lost a combined mass of 475 gigatonnes a year on average. What's even worse is that the polar ice sheets lossing mass pace was found to be accelerating very fast. "What is surprising is this increased contribution by the ice sheets is already happening. If present trends continue, sea level is likely to be significantly higher than levels projected by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007. Our study helps reduce uncertainties in near-term projections of sea level rise," said lead author, Eric Rignot, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and the University of California, Irvine. It took nearly two decades for Rignot's team to observe and look at the changes in ice sheet masses and trends in acceleration of ice loss. With all of this, the authors conclude that for the next four decades, if current ice sheet melting rates continue, their cumulative loss could raise sea level by 15 centimeters, so the authors are taking some serious caution that in the future ice loss acceleration, considerable uncertainties remain.

This ice loss acceleration is not good at all. Even though this happens all over the world, I think it's good that people are taking caution and trying to fix the problem now; the sooner, the better. It just shows how much people care about our worlds land, and that shows a lot of respect. Obviously, some problems will occur in the future, but I'm hoping that by these helpers, they can make it less dramatic for everyone.