Environment News Service: "Ice losses now far surpass ice gains in the shrinking Greenland ice sheet, NASA scientists reported Thursday. The researchers estimate the annual net loss from the ice sheet equals six years of water flow from the Colorado River, but found the ice sheet may not be melting quite as quickly as other studies have found. The research team reported that Greenland's low coastal regions lost 155 gigatons - 41 cubic miles - of ice per year between 2003 and 2005 from excess melting and icebergs. During the same period the high-elevation interior gained 54 gigatons, or 14 cubic miles, annually from excess snowfall. 'With this new analysis we observe dramatic ice mass losses concentrated in the low-elevation coastal regions, with nearly half of the loss coming from southeast Greenland,' said lead author Scott Luthcke of NASA Goddard's Planetary Geodynamics Laboratory. 'In the 1990s the ice was very close to balance with gains at about the same level as losses. That situation has now changed significantly.' Continued monitoring in the future is needed to determine whether this ice loss is a long-term trend, the research team said. The study was published Thursday in 'Science Express', the advance edition of the journal 'Science.' The study details a dramatic acceleration in the rate of ice mass loss since the late 1990s that is nearly identical to reports earlier this year based on radar measurements of glacier acceleration."
"2008 pres"
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