Image credit: Coordenação-Geral de Observação da Terra/INPE. Licensed under the terms of the cc-by-sa-2.0.
Summary of findings
Ice mass loss from the West Antarctic ice sheet contributes to sea level rise. Analysis of a 25-year (1996–2021) record of satellite data showed that, since 1996, the Amundsen Sea Embayment has lost 3331 ± 424 billion tonnes of ice, contributing 9.2 ± 1.2 mm to global sea level. Importantly, it was shown for the first time that extreme years of low or high snowfall have substantial impacts on the annual rates of ice mass loss.
a) 2017–2021 ice speed over the Amundsen Sea Embayment derived from intensity tracking of Sentinel-1a and -1b Synthetic Aperture Radar images. b) Ice speed change calculated as the difference between the mean 2021 speed from Sentinel-1 and the 2005–2008 MEaSUREs annual mosaics.
Application of Research Computing
Testimonial
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Reference
Davison, B.J., Hogg, A.E., Rigby, R. et al. Sea level rise from West Antarctic mass loss significantly modified by large snowfall anomalies. Nat Commun 14, 1479 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36990-3
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