NASA researchers: Arctic ice loss has tripled since 2012

Photo: Pool/Getty Images

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"Antarctic ice is increasing, how can that be if the Earth is warming?"

Nope: "Sea ice increases in Antarctica do not make up for the accelerated Arctic sea ice loss of the last decades... As a whole, the planet has been shedding sea ice at an average annual rate of 13,500 square miles (35,000 square kilometers) since 1979, the equivalent of losing an area of sea ice larger than the state of Maryland every year."

Source: NASA

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"Antarctic ice is increasing, how can that be if the Earth is warming?"

Nope: "Sea ice increases in Antarctica do not make up for the accelerated Arctic sea ice loss of the last decades... As a whole, the

... more

Photo: Pool/Getty Images

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A McMurdo resident watches a NASA balloon launch while standing on the Ross Ice Shelf, with Mount Erebus in the distance, in Antarctica, November 2016. In an era when the Trump administration is seeking to slash federal spending, the fate of Antarctic research is an open question, as the aging, inefficient buildings at McMurdo need replacing. (Jonathan Corum/The New York Times) less

Photo: JONATHAN CORUM, STF

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Antarctic ice loss is causing sea levels across the globe to rise faster now than ever before in history, a NASA and European Space Agency assessment found.

The study, published in the journal Nature last week, examined Antarctic ice mass changes over 25 years, from 1992 to 2017. Scientists found that ice loss during that time caused global sea levels to rise .3 inches -- almost half of which occurred from 2012 on.

In short: researchers determined that ice loss has tripled since 2012, according to the study.

This is significant because Antarctica "stores enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by 190 feet (58 meters), if it were to melt entirely," a post on NASA's website stated. "Knowing how much ice it's losing is key to understanding the impacts of climate change now and its pace in the future."

The full results of the study can be found here.

With two upcoming satellite missions, NASA will contribute even more to this kind of research in the coming years.

The first mission, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO), launched last month and is tasked with measuring changes in how mass is redistributed within Earth's atmosphere, land oceans and ice sheets, according to NASA.

The second, Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat-2), is slated to fly later this year and will use lasers and other instruments to measure Earth's surface elevation. This will help scientists calculate the height of glaciers, sea ice and forests.

Alex Stuckey covers NASA and the environment of the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.

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