(MWN / 29-09-09)  The satellite of the U.S. Space Sgency (NASA) “Icesat” has revealed that the ice of the glaciers in Greenland and of some parts of Antarctica is melting at a rate “record”, causing concern among scientists that warn of the “significant” consequences that this phenomenon will have in the future on the increase of ocean levels.

According to BBC, a team of British experts concluded, after studying satellite data, that the complete melting of the Greenland ice “would raise sea level about seven meters.” “All the glaciers that are fast changing are those that flow into the sea,” explained the researcher from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), Hamish Pritchard.

Also, he noted that the “fast speed” with which some of the glaciers flow towards the sea, “exceeds by far the maximum speed at which ice can be returned to earth through rainfall.” “More graphic” examples about melting come from the Antarctic Peninsula, mainly from a region with a level of warming greater than the rest of the continent.

However, in many other parts of both the Antarctic and Greenland, ice formations “are being confronted” by warmer waters that are eroding their fronts. In addition, the team explains that the breakdown of floating ice shelves that normally constrains the flow of glaciers “also contributes to accelerate the melting and to increase the air temperature.”

81 GLACIERS ARE MELTING AT AN UNSUAL RATE

In this sense, the research shows that, of the 111 glaciers studied, the thickness of 81 narrow at a rate twice as fast as the ice around it. In the case of Antarctica, this is happening in a “massive” way in the layers of the east, while the west Antarctic ice shows a “mixed prospect”.

“One of the major issues that now concern to glaciology is to get fixed models able to predict the way ice layers melt, in order to give an accurate explanation for these observations,” said Dr. Pritchard.

Finally, the researchers calls for better tools to explain how changes in the behaviour of glaciers will affect sea level and they warn that this “dynamic of thinning” is spreading through all latitudes of the planet's icy territories.