NASA: 2 Trillion Ice Tons Melted Since ’03, Study Links Extreme Weather With Global Warming

Two trillion tons of Arctic land ice has melted since 2003, according to new
NASA satellite data that show the latest signs of a warming world.

More
than half of the ice loss occurred in Greenland, and the amount of melt water
from the island would fill up “about 11 Chesapeake Bays”, according to NASA
geophysicist Scott Luthcke, the
Associated Press (AP) reports.
Greenland is now adding about half a
millimeter of sea level rise a year, NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally told the
AP.

NASA scientists presented their findings at the American Geophysical Union (AGU)
conference in San Francisco
. Since 2003, when NASA started taking these
measurements, Alaska has lost 400 billion tons of land ice.

Also announced at the AGU conference were
the results of five years of data from NASA’s Aqua spacecraft. The frequency of
extremely high clouds in Earth's tropics—the type of cloud associated with
extreme weather—is increasing as a result of global warming.

According to
the study
, for every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit increase in average ocean
surface temperature, NASA’s team observed a 45 percent increase in the frequency
of very high clouds, linked with severe storms, torrential rain and
hail.

To learn more about the connection between extreme weather and our
warming world, visit nwf.org/extremeweather. Reports
detail floods, droughts, hurricanes, and wildfires in various regions across the
United States.

Published: December 23, 2008