Despite extensive ice melt elsewhere, East Antarctica ice sheet is growing

Nature : Whereas glaciers in much of Antarctica are melting at unprecedented rates, those in the eastern part of the continent have actually been growing fairly steadily, according to a recent study to be published in the Journal of Glaciology. To track the height of Antarctica’s ice-sheet surface over the past two decades, Jay Zwally of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and colleagues used data from the European Space Agency’s European remote sensing radar satellite and NASA’s ICESat satellite. Since 1992, when measurements began, they found that East Antarctica’s ice sheet has been increasing in size by about a centimeter each year. Although the ice growth is seemingly minimal, it is counterbalancing the ice losses elsewhere on the continent, the researchers say. Nevertheless, Antarctica’s glacial ice mass is complex, and the findings should in no way lessen concerns over global warming, says Zwally.