As climate change continues to make headlines across the world, participants at the 2007 Envisat Symposium this week are hearing how Earth observation satellites allow scientists to better understand the parameters involved in global warming and how this is impacting the planet.
The cryosphere is both influenced by and has a major influence on climate. Because any increase in the melt rate of ice sheets and glaciers has the potential to greatly increase sea level, researchers are looking to the cryosphere to get a better idea of the likely scale of the impact of climate change. In addition, the melting of sea-ice will increase the amount of solar radiation that will be absorbed by ice-free polar oceans rather than reflected by ice-covered oceans, increasing the ocean temperature.
Average temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula have risen over the last 50 years by half a degree Celsius a decade and are having an impact on the ice shelves and glaciers. Innsbruck University's Professor Helmut Rott has been observing the accelerated retreat and break-up of the Larsen Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula in the face of this warming through radar images acquired by ESAs ERS and Envisat satellites.
The retreat has been accelerating since 1992 and has culminated in two collapse events: Larsen-A in January 1995 and Larsen-B in March 2002. Envisat captured the disintegration of the 200-metre-thick Larsen-B Ice Shelf, which researchers estimate had been stable since the last ice age 12 000 years ago.
"This retreat was triggered by climate warming, which caused prolonged summer melt seasons and the formation of extended melt water streams and ponds on the ice shelf surfaces," Rott said.
The sections of Larsen-A, which disintegrated almost completely in January 1995, and Larsen-B that broke away were 200 to 350 metres thick. According to Rott, only 1403 square kilometres of Larsen-B remain and will soon break away completely.
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Contact: Mariangela D'Acunto
Mariangela.DAcunto@esa.int
39-069-418-0856
European Space Agency
27-Apr-2007