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More than 2 trillion tons of ice melted in arctic since 2003 WASHINGTON (AP) | December 2008 More than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003, according to new NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of what scientists say is global warming. More than half of the loss of landlocked ice in the past five years has occurred in Greenland, based on measurements of ice weight by NASA's GRACE satellite, said NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke. The water melting from Greenland in the past five years would fill up about 11 Chesapeake Bays, he said, and the Greenland melt seems to be accelerating. NASA scientists planned to present their findings Thursday at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco. Luthcke said Greenland figures for the summer of 2008 aren't complete yet, but this year's ice loss, while still significant, won't be as severe as 2007. The news was better for Alaska. After a precipitous drop in 2005, land ice increased slightly in 2008 because of large winter snowfalls, Luthcke said. Since 2003, when the NASA satellite started taking measurements, Alaska has lost 400 billion tons of land ice.
Related Guardian | Spain loses glaciers and melt water to climate change | February 2009 Science Daily | Glaciers around the world continue to melt at high rates | February 2009 RealClimate.org | Antarctic warming is robust | February 2009 RealClimate.org | Warming reception to Anarctic warming story | January 2009 RealClimate.org | Global glacier index update | January 2009 CO2Now.org | Arctic Sea Ice
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