Greenland has lost more than 600 billion tons of ice by the summer of 2019. This phenomenon should have boosted the sea level by 2.2 mm acceding to measurements that were recorded by satellites, but some of the water turned into ice again during the winter.
New data collected by the Grace-FO mission, which is a joint initiative conducted by the US and Germany, has been quite fascinating. The mission involves a pair of satellites that roam across the globe and track variations in the gravity field of the planet, which may infer that some mass changes took place.
The duo can detect variations related to the amount of water stored in the surface and the glaciers that are spread across the world. A team of researchers harnessed the new information and attempted to perform a comparison with old data in an attempt to uncover new clues.
Data From NASA’s Grace-FO Satellite Revealed How Fast Is Ice Melting In Greenland
The task has been more difficult than it appeared to be at the start of the project. The Grace-FO spacecraft was sent into space after a considerable delay, and there is a gap of seven months in the data. A faulty accelerometer also affected the Grace FO spacecraft after they reached the orbit.
Most satellites track the variations related to ice sheets by measuring changes related to speed or shape. The main advantage of using Grace FO is represented by the fact that the spacecraft can estimate the weight of the ice from the orbit.
Due to the increase of the global temperature, many ice sheets and glaciers across the world continue to melt at an accelerated rate. In Greenland, the temperature at the highest point of the ice sheet reached 0 degrees Celsius, and it is thought that it will be even higher in the future. More data could be shared in the future, and the current results are featured in a scientific journal.
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