ESA - European Satellite data yields major results in Greenland glaciers study

ESA

European Satellite data yields major results in Greenland glaciers study

ESA's satellite radar imagery has played a central role in scientists’ findings on changes in the velocity structure of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Using satellite data collected between 1996 and 2005 by ESA’s European Remote Sensing satellites ERS-1 and ERS-2, ESA’s Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) and Canada’s Radarsat-1, scientists learned Greenland glaciers are melting into the sea twice as fast as previously believed. Greenland’s ice sheet has an area of 1 833 900 square kilometres and an average thickness of 2.3 kilometres. It is the second largest concentration of frozen freshwater on Earth and if it were to melt completely global sea level would increase by up to seven metres.The study, published in Science on 17 February 2006, found Greenland’s southern glaciers are now dumping twice as much ice yearly into the Atlantic as they did in 1996, accounting for nearly 17 percent of the estimated 2.54 millimetre annual rise in global sea levels.