The Amundsen Sea lost 3 million tons of ice in 25 years

The Amundsen Sea, Antarctica’s fastest-changing region, has lost more than 3 million tons of ice over a 25-year period, according to a study published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

According to the Spanish private news agency Europa Press, if the lost ice were piled up in London, it would be two kilometers high, and if it covered Manhattan, it would reach 61 km.

Led by Benjamin Davison of the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, the study calculated the “mass balance” of the bay, which takes into account the balance between snow mass and ice gain due to ice fall and the loss of mass on breakaway when icebergs form at the tip of a glacier and move out to sea. .

The Amundsen Bay in West Antarctica is made up of 20 large glaciers, more than four times the size of Great Britain, which play a key role in global sea level rise.

If all the water trapped in the area by snow and ice is dumped into the sea, the ocean level could rise by more than a meter.

The results of the study show that West Antarctica recorded a net loss of 3.331 million tons of ice between 1996 and 2021, contributing to sea level rise of more than nine millimeters.

Changes in temperature and ocean currents are believed to have been the factors most contributing to the loss of ice.

“The 20 glaciers in West Antarctica have lost large amounts of ice over the last quarter of a century, and there is no indication that this process is moving” towards rapid change, although there have been periods when the rate of mass loss has slowed slightly. This is stated in a statement by Benjamin Davison from the Institute of Climate and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Leeds.

“Scientists are monitoring what is happening in the Amundsen Sea reservoir because of the critical role it plays in sea level rise,” he added, pointing out communities around the world that “may experience extreme flooding if ocean levels will rise significantly in the coming years. years”.