Study: Glaciers melting faster, changing sea level
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An unidentified tourist rests in front of the Perito Moreno Glacier in Patagonian southern Argentina.
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Researchers find sea levels rising as glaciers melt. CNN's Ann Kellan reports
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| ICE MELT |
Mountain glaciers are retreating in many parts of the world and earlier studies have shown the melting high altitude ice is helping to boost a gradual rise sea level.
The researchers estimate that water from the Patagonia ice fields is contributing about 9 percent of the sea level rise caused by the melting of mountain glaciers. Alaska's contribution to water reaching the sea from mountain glaciers is estimated at about 30 percent.
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Melting of glaciers in the Patagonian ice fields of southern Argentina and Chile has doubled in recent years, caused by higher temperatures, lower snowfall and a more rapid breaking of icebergs, a study suggests.
Using satellites from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Defense Department, researchers measured the loss from two ice fields on the southern tip of South America and found that the rate of melting doubled from 1995 to 2000 when compared with earlier measurements.
A report on the findings appear Friday in the journal Science.
The two ice fields cover a total of 6,600 square miles and contain 63 glaciers. Some dump their water into the ocean, while others flow into high lakes.
Researchers estimated that the glaciers are losing the equivalent of 10 cubic miles of ice every year now. This is enough to annually raise the world's sea level by about four-one thousandths of an inch, the scientists calculated.
This means that the mountain glaciers in Patagonia are contributing an unusually large amount of water to the sea when compared with some much larger ice fields, the researchers said.
Alaska, for instance, has five times more ice than Patagonia. Yet, the melt off from Patagonia is almost a third as much as the melt off from Alaska's mountain glaciers.
The researchers concluded that the Patagonia ice is melting faster now due to warmer air temperatures, a decrease in precipitation and a more rapid breaking of pieces of icebergs into the ocean, known as calving.
The study was conducted by Eric Rignot of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California; Andres Rivera of the University of Chile in Santiago, and Gino Casassa of the Center of Scientific Studies in Valdivia, Chile.
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