http://www.nature.com/news/2006/0602...060227-10.html
Basically, they measured the gravity over the Antarctic, corrected for plate shifts, and determined that there's an overall loss of mass down there. It corresponds to up to 0.4 mm rise in ocean levels per year. (I notice that they didn't give a range on that, while their results are presented as a range -- I assume they used the bigger number for that estimate).
Any thoughts? Does this indicate a larger trend of global warming? Human-induced global warming? Or is the amount of observed melting insignificant in the larger context? Or is it that we can't say anything without historical data?
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Nature
To get the full picture, Velicogna and her colleagues used a special pair of NASA satellites known as the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). These orbit in tandem several hundred metres from Earth and provide monthly estimates of Earth's global gravity field and mass distribution.
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I'm assuming they mean "several hundred kilometres."
