NASA Arctic Sea Levels are Rising

A six-year NASA report says Arctic ice is thinner and melting away faster than previously thought.

The Wilkins ice shelf in Antarctica is on brink of disintegrating. The European Space Agency took satellite photos, confirming that the thread of ice connecting the ice shelf to land has shattered. Scientists warn that the entire ice shelf could soon break up and disappear.

NASA scientist Tom Wagner says this isn’t surprising.

[Tom Wagner, NASA Scientist]:
"These are really important events and they are also consistent with a warming world. You know, warmer ocean waters destabilizes the ice shelf, it melts, breaks and falls away."

Samples were collected from several ground research expeditions and were combined with satellite images.

Arctic ice is important because it reflects sunlight back into space. The less ice there is, the more the sun's rays hit the ocean… heating the planet even more… and if the planet gets hotter the more chance there is that sea levels will rise further.

[Tom Wagner, NASA Scientist]:
"Right now our best estimates of sea level rise, we talk about in 100 years maybe three to five feet of increased sea level. But those models are as simple and as conservative as we can make them. When you put in these dynamic effects you have the possibility to melt a lot more of the land ice and potentially raise the sea level a lot higher."

The “dynamic effects” Wagner talks about are events such as the Wilkins break. He says current models do not account for their impact on the environment.

[Tom Wagner, NASA Scientist]:
"You know, there are people who still question whether warming of the atmosphere is man-made or not, or whether we are actually seeing effects of it. Look, this is a really clear effect. The Arctic sea ice is shrinking even in the winter, it has been going on for six years and it looks like it is continuing."

NASA says rising sea levels could also affect global weather patterns.