article_snippet.sent: A study published in December suggests this region is haemorrhaging ice at a rate triple that of a decade ago.
article_snippet.sent: The findings of the 21-year study by Nasa and the University of California, Irvine claim to provide the most accurate estimates yet of just how fast glaciers are melting in the Amundsen Sea Embayment.
article_snippet.sent: Scientists found the rate by taking radar, laser and satellite measurements of the glaciers' mass between 1992 and 2013.
article_snippet.sent: Scientists found Scientists lost an average 83 gigatons per year (91.5 billion U.S. tons), or the equivalent of losing the water weight of Mount Everest every two years.
article_snippet.sent: The recordings are interested in this because the ice floating around Antarctica has thinned by nearly 20 percent, according to recent research.
article_snippet.sent: The study, based on satellite measurements between 1994 and 2012 by the European Space Agency, sheds new light on how Antarctic ice responds to climate change.
article_snippet.sent: Researchers found that the total volume of Antarctic ice changed little between 1994 and 2003, but after that point melting markedly accelerated.
article_snippet.sent: Ice in western Antarctica declined throughout the study period.
article_snippet.sent: A slight increase in ice thickness was observed in eastern Antarctica before 2003 when rapid melting began, leading to an 18 percent reduction of thickness compared to 1994. '
article_snippet.sent: Eighteen percent over the course of 18 years is really a substantial change,' said Fernando Paolo, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego. '
article_snippet.sent: Overall, Fernando Paolo, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego show not only the total ice shelf volume is decreasing, but we see an acceleration in the last decade.'
article_snippet.sent: If the rate of thinning continues, the ice shelves could lose half of the ice shelves volume over the next 200 years, the ice shelves calculated.