A new research suggests that the ice loss in Antarctica is accelerating, particularly in East Antarctica, the largest ice sheet where previous studies saw almost a mass balance.

The results indicate that "as a whole, Antarctica may soon be contributing significantly more to global sea level rise," write the US-based research team in the paper, which was published Monday on the science journal Nature Geoscience.

By using satellite data, the researchers at University of Texas estimated a total ice sheet loss of 190 gigatons (1 gigaton equals to 1 cubic kilometers of water) a year in Antarctica from April 2002 to January 2009, with an error of ±77 gigatons. And during the same period in East Antarctica, the rate of ice loss was 57 gigatons a year, with an error of ±52 gigatons, mostly in coastal regions.

"If you examine the data between January and September this year, which we haven't published yet, it's more evident that East Antarctica is increasingly losing ice along the coastal regions," said the lead author Dr Jianli Chen, a Chinese-American scientist with the Center for Space Research at the University of Texas at Austin (UT).

The number itself is not that critical, as 57 cubic kilometers' ice loss might only result in about 0.1 millimeters of sea level rise. However, what matters is that "we started seeing changes in East Antarctica," Chen said. "In the future, it (the trend of ice loss) may become more significant."

(Chinadaily.com.cn November 25, 2009)