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Measurements of Time-Variable Gravity Show Mass Loss in Antarctica
Isabella Velicogna1,2* and
John Wahr1*
Using measurements of time-variable gravity from the GravityRecovery and Climate Experiment satellites, we determined massvariations of the Antarctic ice sheet during 2002–2005.We found that the mass of the ice sheet decreased significantly,at a rate of 152 ± 80 cubic kilometers of ice per year,which is equivalent to 0.4 ± 0.2 millimeters of globalsea-level rise per year. Most of this mass loss came from theWest Antarctic Ice Sheet.
1 University of Colorado, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and Department of Physics, University Campus Box 390, Boulder, CO 80309–0390, USA. 2 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Mail Stop 300-233, Pasadena, CA 91109–8099, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: isabella{at}colorado.edu (I.V.); wahr{at}colorado.edu (J.W.)
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