![\"Antarctic](\"http:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Antarctic_Ice_Changes-255x300.jpg\")
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A new NASA study on the Antarctic Ice Sheet says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.<\/p>\n
The study analyzed changes in the surface height of the Antarctic ice sheet measured by radar altimeters on two European Space Agency European Remote Sensing (ERS) satellites, spanning from 1992 to 2001, and by the laser altimeter on NASA\u2019s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) from 2003 to 2008.<\/p>\n
The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change\u2019s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.<\/p>\n
According to the new analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic Ice Sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tons of ice a year from 1992 to present. That net gain slowed to 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island region of\u00a0West Antarctica<\/a>,\u201d said Jay Zwally, a glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study, which was published on Oct. 30 in the\u00a0Journal of Glaciology<\/em>. \u201cOur main disagreement is for\u00a0East Antarctica<\/a>\u00a0and the interior of West Antarctica \u2014 there, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas.\u201d Zwally added that his team \u201cmeasured small height changes over large areas, as well as the large changes observed over smaller areas.\u201d<\/p>\n Scientists calculate how much the Antarctic Ice Sheet is growing or shrinking from the changes in surface height that are measured by the satellite altimeters. In locations where the amount of new snowfall accumulating on an ice sheet is not equal to the ice flow downward and outward to the ocean, the surface height changes and the Antarctic Ice Sheet mass grows or shrinks.<\/p>\n