We all know (hopefully) that warming temperatures is driving ice loss. But seeing it makes it all the more disturbing. Don’t get me wrong, the visualization produced by NASA and ESA is beautiful, but what it’s showing is simply heartbreaking. Between 2010 and 2023, Greenland lost 563 cubic miles (2,347 cubic kilometers) of ice, which is enough to fill Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake.
The most extreme ice loss occurred at the ice sheets outlet glaciers. In some areas, like west Greenland, some ice sheets thinned by over 70 meters.
This dramatic change isn’t just significant for Greenland itself. The ice melt has far-reaching impacts on ecosystems worldwide, which in turn affect communities worldwide — both human and animal communities. For animals in the area, the extreme change can of course ber catastrophic.
The one silver lining is that thanks to data from new satellites, we have an accurate monitoring of ice sheets, better than ever before. The data comes from two different satellites: ESA’s CryoSat (launched in 2010) uses radar to measure the height of Earth’s surface, while NASA’s ICESat-2 (launched in 2018) uses laser. Both methods have their fortes and limitations, and researchers wanted to see how consistent the measurements are. The research, published in Geophysical Research Letters, shows that the data is indeed very consistent.
“We are very excited to have discovered that CryoSat and ICESat-2 are in such close agreement,” says lead author and CPOM researcher Nitin Ravinder. “Their complementary nature provides a strong motivation to combine the data sets to produce improved estimates of ice sheet volume and mass changes. As ice sheet mass loss is a key contributor to global sea level rise, this is incredibly useful for the scientific community and policymakers.”
The two sister missions will be instrumental for our understanding of the impact of climate change on polar ice.
Tommaso Parrinello, CryoSat Mission Manager at ESA, said he was happy about the campaign’s impact: “CryoSat has provided an invaluable platform for understanding our planet’s ice coverage over the past 14 years, but by aligning our data with ICESat-2, we’ve opened new avenues for precision and insight.
“This collaboration represents an exciting step forward, not just in terms of technology but in how we can better serve scientists and policymakers who rely on our data to understand and mitigate climate impacts.”
“It is great to see that the data from ‘sister missions’ are providing a consistent picture of the changes going on in Greenland,” says Thorsten Markus, project scientist for the ICESat-2 mission at NASA.
While the data paints a sobering picture of Greenland’s ice loss and its cascading effects on global ecosystems, it also equips scientists and policymakers with the tools to address these challenges. By combining their insights, these satellite missions underscore the importance of international cooperation in tackling the climate crisis ensuring that every ounce of data contributes to a clearer, more actionable understanding of our changing world.
