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Satellites monitoring the state of the White Continent indicate some 200 billion tonnes a year are now being lost to the ocean as a result of melting.
This is pushing up global sea levels by 0.6mm annually - a three-fold increase since 2012 when the last such assessment was undertaken.
Scientists report the new numbers in the journal Nature.
Governments will need to take account of the information and its accelerating trend as they plan future defences to protect low-lying coastal communities.
The researchers say the losses are occurring predominantly in the West of the continent, where warm waters are getting under and melting the fronts of glaciers that terminate in the ocean.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44470208
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0179-y
See also: Ars Technica, Phys Org and University of Leeds.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 14 2018, @10:59PM (2 children)
12 years to 1.8 mm
That's 1.8 mm per year! Your estimate if off by an order of magnitude.
(Score: 2) by VanessaE on Saturday June 16 2018, @03:07PM (1 child)
I was just going by the original math, that indicated a tripling of the rise in 6 years, and extrapolating from that to get what I figured was a worst-case scenario. But okay, if it were a flat 1.8 mm per year, that's still a 1 meter rise in 555 years. Even if the rate were to double a few times, it'll still be like 60 years at worst. I think we have time to fix it, or at least to adapt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 17 2018, @05:39AM
So let's get this straight: you screw up your estimates by an order of magnitude... but you're going to trust your gut on this one.