Satellite measurements reveal gravity dip from ice loss in West Antarctica

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140930195428.htm

Date: September 30, 2014
Source: European Space Agency
Summary:
Although not designed to map changes in Earth's gravity over time, ESA's GOCE satellite has shown that the ice lost from West Antarctica over the last few years has left its signature. More than doubling its planned life in orbit, GOCE spent four years measuring Earth's gravity in unprecedented detail. Researchers have found that the decrease in the mass of ice during this period was mirrored in GOCE's measurements.

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ESA's CryoSat satellite, which carries a radar altimeter, has recently shown that since 2009 the rate at which ice is been lost from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet every year has increased by a factor of three.

And, between 2011 and 2014, Antarctica as a whole has been shrinking in volume by 125 cubic kilometres a year.

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