“It remains unclear if such losses will decline or will level
off or will accelerate further," says Ian Joughin, a
glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. "The
melting needs monitoring to further understand the ice sheet
processes leading to the change.” The findings show that two
thirds of the annual ice loss is from the Greenland sheet.
Indeed, Greenland is losing five times as much ice each year as
it did in the 1990s. Antarctica provides a more nuanced picture.
In East Antarctica, which holds at least four-fifths of the
continent’s ice, the mass ice forms are stable – actually
gaining slightly during the past 20 years. But these gains are
eclipsed by losses in West Antarctica and on the Antarctic
peninsula, which yield a net loss of ice for the continent
annually and account for the remaining third of total annual
ice-sheet loss detailed in the study. The report is a
“milestone,” because it provides a more precise estimate of ice-
sheet losses, the researchers said during a Wednesday telec