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Analysis of satellite data has shown that over the past 20 years the glaciers of Greenland and Antarctica lost thousands of gigatons of mass. However, it is possible that the Earth itself will regulate the consequences of this process and catastrophic changes in the lives of the inhabitants of the planet are not will happen. One of the main tasks of modern climatologists and environmentalists – sort out whether current climate change is man-made or natural, and also to understand whether it threatens some catastrophic consequences of the earth’s ecosystem and people. Here opinions differ: fears have already been expressed that melting ice Greenland catastrophic will increase fresh water content in ocean, Pacific warming will upset El Nino – La Niña, causing catastrophic climate events in South America. However, it was shown that in the melting of the Himalayan glaciers there is nothing catastrophic. New work published in Science magazine, still trying to find out the degree of danger melting glaciers of Antarctica and Greenland. International scientists IMBIE (The Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise) received disappointing evidence that in between between 1992 and 2011, glaciers lost 2,000 to 5,000 gigatons water. The IMBIE project includes 47 specialists from 26 laboratories in worldwide and supported by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. The project manager is Professor Andrew Shepard, a specialist in the study of earth processes, a member of the National Earth Observation Center (NCEO) in England and author of many publications. Glacier Mass Loss Information Received IMBIE scientists based on satellite data. “Successful our work became thanks to the combined efforts of an international scientific community: we received accurate satellite data provided by space agencies. Without this, we would not have been able to claim that the glaciers are melting intensively, “- says the outcome Shepard project. In the course of the study, scientists involved 10 satellites of various types launched from the late 1980s to the beginning 2000s, research duration ranged from 4 to 12 years. The studied areas of glaciers were divided into regions beyond which conducted a separate observation by certain satellites. Comparing all the results, scientists found that at present glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica lose three times more mass than in 1990, and the growth rate of sea level increased from 0.27 mm to 0.97 mm per year. This result showed that ice melting is 1/5 part (or 11.1 ± 3.8 mm) of the total level increase oceans for the studied period, with about two-thirds of this magnitude gives the Greenland Glacier. The risk is that melting Greenland’s ice shell will increase the amount of fresh water entering the Atlantic Ocean, which in turn will violate flow pattern in the North Atlantic. If the currents The North Atlantic circulation will slow down, fresh water, which now keeps on the surface in the form of a kind of screen, sink into deeper layers, and then the hardest the physico-chemical process of carbon retention is disrupted. “Pace, with which glaciers melt in Greenland, five times higher than in the middle 1990s, but global sea level remains overall permanent, “commented Dr. Irvins, one of the project coordinators. The main goal of the IMBIE project is to draw public attention to the problem of melting glaciers and climate change in general. Not involved in research Professor Richard Ellie, climatologist at the University of Pennsylvania, also commented on the results of the work: “Received data help to more clearly determine changes in sea level and climate temperature. “However, there is an opinion that flooding is not you should be afraid, because the process of melting has already occurred many thousands years ago: rocks on the shores of the Bahamas and Bermuda Theory developed by two paleoclimatologists from Columbia University – Maureen Reimo and Jerry Mitrovica believes that glaciers are like a heavy backpack on a traveler’s shoulders: under his weight, a person bends down, but when he removes it, straightens up. The same thing happens with the tectonic plate under glacier: as the glacier loses mass, a plate pops up – and everything falls into place.
Antarctica Water Greenland Climate
