The Antarctic Ice Cloak registered the largest climb ever regarding its mass between 2021 and 2023.
Antarctic Ice Cloak (MGA), monitored by the Grace-FO mission, plays an important role in the global sea level climb.
Four major glaciers in the region of Wilkes Land-Queen Mary Land, in the East Antarcticathey reversed their previous standard of accelerated mass loss from 2011 to 2020.
From 2002 to 2010, the MGA generally registered a mass loss with a variation rate of -73.79 ± 56.27 GT/year, which almost doubled to -142.06 ± 56.12 GT/year in 2011-2020, advances a. One followed a mass gain significant during the period of 2021 a 2023which compensated for the decreasing tendency recorded so far.
This is a record increaseaccording to researchers at the University of Tongji.
The authors of, published on March 19 in Science China Earth Sciences. explain that “this loss of accelerated mass was driven mainly by two factors: the reduction of superficial mass (which contributed 72.53%) and the increased ice discharge (27,47%)”.
This progress compensated for the average global sea level climb at a rate of 0.30 ± 0.21 mm/year.
The four main glacier basins in the WL-QML region, that is, Totten, Moscow University, Denman and Vincennes Baypresented an intensification of mass loss with a rate of 47.64 ± 8.14 GT/year. If these giants melted, they would raise more than 7 meters the average sea level.
