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Science 30 August 2002:
Vol. 297. no. 5586, pp. 1502 - 1506
DOI: 10.1126/science.1073888
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Review

Mass Balance of Polar Ice Sheets

Eric Rignot,1 Robert H. Thomas2

Recent advances in the determination of the mass balance of polar ice sheets show that the Greenland Ice Sheet is losing mass by near-coastal thinning, and that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, with thickening in the west and thinning in the north, is probably thinning overall. The mass imbalance of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is likely to be small, but even its sign cannot yet be determined. Large sectors of ice in southeast Greenland, the Amundsen Sea Embayment of West Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula are changing quite rapidly as a result of processes not yet understood.

1 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Mail Stop 300-235, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
2 EG&G Services, Wallops Flight Facility, Building N-159, Wallops Island, VA 23337, USA. E-mail: eric{at}adelie.jpl.nasa.gov, robert_thomas{at}hotmail.com

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