Mass Balance of Polar Ice Sheets

Recent advances in the determination of the mass balance of polar ice sheets show that the Greenland Ice Sheet is losing mass by near-coastal thinning, and that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, with thickening in the west and thinning in the north, is probably thinning overall. The mass imbalance of th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: Rignot, Eric, Thomas, Robert H.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2002
Subjects:
Amundsen Sea
Antarc*
Antarctic
Antarctic Peninsula
Antarctica
Greenland
Ice Sheet
West Antarctica
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1073888
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.1073888
Description
Summary:Recent advances in the determination of the mass balance of polar ice sheets show that the Greenland Ice Sheet is losing mass by near-coastal thinning, and that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, with thickening in the west and thinning in the north, is probably thinning overall. The mass imbalance of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is likely to be small, but even its sign cannot yet be determined. Large sectors of ice in southeast Greenland, the Amundsen Sea Embayment of West Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula are changing quite rapidly as a result of processes not yet understood.

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