Melting glaciers also behind sea-level rise

WASHINGTON: World's shrinking glaciers contributed to almost a third of the sea-level rise between 2003 and 2009, a new study has found. While 99% of Earth's land ice is locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the remaining ice in the world's glaciers contributed just as much to sea rise as the two ice sheets combined from 2003 to 2009, researchers say. The research found that all glacial regions lost mass from 2003 to 2009, with the biggest ice losses occurring in Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the southern Andes and the Himalayas. The glaciers outside of the Greenland and Antarctic sheets lost an average of 260 billion metric tonnes of ice annually during the study period, causing the oceans to rise 0.03 inches, or about 0.7 millimetres per year.


Current estimates predict if all the glaciers in the world were to melt, they would raise sea level by about two feet. In contrast, an entire Greenland ice sheet melt would raise sea levels by 20 feet, while if Antarctica lost its ice cover, it would rise 200 feet.