The Arctic Revealed
March 13, 2024
Islands Adrift
March 13, 2024

An Icy
Farewell

The Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica

The Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica as seen by the COSMO-SkyMed satellite from ASI, which clearly shows icebergs breaking away from the ice shelf formed by the flow of ice into the sea.

© COSMO-SkyMed, ASI

ICE

Antarctic ice shelves are floating extensions of the ice sheet that slow down the flow of ice into the ocean. They have lost about 8.3 trillion tons of ice in the last 25 years, mainly due to melting from below by warm water. Satellites observe ice shelf changes, such as area, thickness, and mass, and their impacts on sea level, biodiversity, and climate.

This polar view shows the 2023 minimum and maximum ice extent. The annual minimum was reached in Antarctica on 20 February 2023 at the end of the Southern summer. The maximum was reached on 10 September 2023. The red lines show the equivalent 1981-2010 median sea-ice extent.

© ESA

Paolo Cipollini

Ocean and Ice Senior Scientist

European Space Agency - ESA

There is enough water in Antarctica that if it melts completely due to climate change, it will increase sea levels by more than 50 metres. So we need to keep those huge ice masses under careful surveillance. One way to do this is to use radar altimeters, a kind of satellite instrument that can measure the height of ice sheets to see how they change over the months and years.
Alessandro Coletta

COSMO-SkyMed Mission Manager

Agenzia spaziale italiana - ASI

Earth observation provides essential data for appraising the Earth’s ice sheets in the context of a warming climate. Using satellite data from the Italian COSMO-SkyMed constellation over a short term, scientists can track the dynamics of the Pine Island Glacier (PIG), the Antarctic mass that is the largest contributor to sea level rise. PIG’s deterioration in mass has rapidly increased over the past 40 years leading to a retreat in its grounding line.
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