Greenland Continuously Lost 200 Million Tonnes Ice Every Year Since 2003

Scientists at the University of California (UCI) in the third week of November 2012 confirmed that Greenland was losing 200 million tonnes ice every year ever since 2003 and this in turn will have a huge impact on the sea levels.  

According to the latest analysis, scientists who study the changing mass of this island with the help of satellite data, support the trends which were reported initially without including the record-breaking melting of ice of previous two summers.

According to the researcher Isabella Velicogna of UCI, Greenland is one place where ice melting is taking place rapidly and this in turn is contributing to the rising sea levels. Velicogna analyses the data which is being used in the recent studies from the GRACE or Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment that detects major changes on Earth’s surface. This is done by GRACE by checking the increase of decrease in gravity level, something which is directly associated with the mass below two GRACE satellites.

Approximately, 200 million tonnes ice is required for filling the railroad coal cars in order to encircle Earth. Princeton University, on the other hand applied another approach for analysing GRACE data. It was established that during 2003 as well as 2004, this low mass remained centred along Eastern coast of Greenland. In the year 2005 till 2006, the mass loss became less in northeast but increased in southeast. Also, there was more mass loss along northwest coast from 2007-2010.

The scientists were aware of this but the recent study has confirmed what they knew.