Recent changes observed in Antarctica show some characteristics in common with changes to the Greenland Ice Sheet. These include rising temperatures, ice melt, enhanced iceberg calving and shrinking sea ice. It was previously thought that Antarctica was more stable and less susceptible to climate change. More recent data, however, show that Antarctica’s loss of sea ice, the speed of glaciers, mass loss of ice sheet and ice shelf areas, as well as annual mean surface temperature, reflect trends observed in Greenland.
Recent research was produced as part of the Processes for Ice Sheets in Climate models and Earth Observation project, which is funded by ESA’s Climate Change Initiative. The project’s findings were published in February in Nature Communications Earth & Environment journal.
Read full story: Why is Antarctica’s mass increasing?