Antarctica’s Ice Losses Double in Less Than 10 Years, Study Says

Antarctica is now losing about 160 billion tonnes of ice a year to the ocean - twice as much as when the continent was last surveyed.

The new assessment comes from Europe's Cryosat spacecraft, which has a radar instrument specifically designed to measure the shape of the ice sheet.

The melt loss from the White Continent is sufficient to push up global sea levels by around 0.43mm per year.  Scientists report the data in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The new study incorporates three years of measurements from 2010 to 2013, and updates a synthesis of observations made by other satellites over the period 2005 to 2010.

Antarctica’s Ice Losses Double in Less Than 10 Years, Study Says