Rapid ice loss in a remote Arctic ice cap has been detected by the Sentinel-1A and CryoSat satellites.
ENLARGE / The CryoSat mission provides data to determine the precise rate of change in the thickness of the polar ice sheets and floating sea ice. It is capable of detecting changes as little as 1 cm per year. The information from CryoSat is leading to a better understanding of how the volume of ice on Earth is changing and, in turn, a better appreciation of how ice and climate are linked. Credit: ESA – P. Carri
Located on Norway's Nordaustlandet island in the Svalbard archipelago, parts of the Austfonna ice cap have thinned by more than 50 m since 2012 – about a sixth of the ice's thickness.
Over the last two decades, ice loss from the southeast region of Austfonna has increased significantly, and ice thinning has spread over 50 km inland and is now within 10 km of the summit.
The ice cap's outlet glacier is also flowing 25 times faster, from 150 m to 3.8 km per year – half a metre per hour.
In the study published in Geophysical Research Letters, a team led by scientists from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM) at the University of Leeds in the UK combined observations from eight satellite missions, including Sentinel-1A and CryoSat, with results from regional climate models.
"These results provide a clear example of just how quickly ice caps can evolve, and highlight the challenges associated with making projections of their future contribution to sea level," said the study's lead author, Dr Mal McMillan.
"New satellites such as Sentinel-1A and CryoSat are essential for enabling us to systematically monitor ice caps and ice sheets, and to better understand these remote polar environments."
Sentinel-1A, the first satellite developed for Europe's Copernicus programme, was launched in April last year, while CryoSat has been in orbit since 2010.
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