Dramatic Changes In Polar Ice: Are We Waking Sleeping Giants
Abdalati, Waleed 1
1 Earth Science and Observation Center and Department of Geography University of Colorado
From collapsing ice shelves to accelerating outlet glaciers, to increasingly negative ice sheet mass balance, the Earth’s ice sheets are changing in remarkable ways. With the equivalent of 65 meters of sea level stored in these frozen reservoirs, and as a major source of freshwater influx to the surrounding oceans, their potential impact is of great consequence to society worldwide. As a result, there is a critical need to understand the underlying mechanisms that drive ice sheet change. Great advances have been made in the last decade as satellites and aircraft observations have shattered previous perceptions of ice sheet behavior and have shed light on the remarkable speed with which they can respond to climate forcing. The space-based view provides both perspective and context that enable new insights into how and why ice is changing and what these changes may mean for life on Earth?