Fluctuations in the masses of the world’s largest ice sheets carry important consequences for future sea level rise, but understanding the complicated interplay of atmospheric conditions, snowfall input and melting processes has never been easy to measure due to the sheer size and remoteness inherent to glacial landscapes.
Fluctuations in the masses of the world’s largest ice sheets carry important consequences for future sea level rise, but understanding the complicated interplay of atmospheric conditions, snowfall input and melting processes has never been easy to measure due to the sheer size and remoteness inherent to glacial landscapes.
Much has changed for the better in the past decade, according to a new review paper co-authored by researchers at CU Boulder, NASA, Utrecht University and Delft University of Technology and recently published in the Review of Geophysics.
The study outlines improvements in satellite imaging and remote sensing equipment that have allowed scientists to measure ice mass in greater detail than ever before.
“We’ve come a long way in the last 10 years from an observational perspective,” said Jan Lenaerts, lead author of the research and an assistant professor in CU Boulder’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ATOC). “Knowing what happens to ice sheets in terms of mass in, mass out allows us to better connect climate variations to ice mass and how much the mass has changed over time.”
Read more at University of Colorado at Boulder
Photo credit: Moiralaw via Pixabay
