Topic 3a: Introduction to Ice Sheets and Sea Level Rise
In this lecture, Andrew Shepherd discusses why we rely on satellite data to measure the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, and the impact that the melting ice sheets have on the planet and our society
There are two polar ice sheets on Earth today: Antarctica and Greenland.
They cover over 20,000 square miles and contain 99% of the Earth’s freshwater.
If the Greenland Ice Sheet were to melt, scientists estimate that sea levels would rise by 6 metres. If the Antarctic Ice Sheet were to melt, scientists think that sea levels would rise by 60 metres.
Scientists at CPOM (The Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling) have used data from CryoSat to estimate that the Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing 159 billion tonnes of ice per year.
Featured Educator:
- Professor Andrew Shepherd
(This video was filmed remotely during COVID-19 lockdown conditions)
Course topics
The core videos of this course are labelled as topic videos.
We have also provided a range of optional further reading, links, and additional resources to help consolidate your learning. Here is a summary of what is available:
Topic links and resources
In each topic, once you have watched the video and read the accompanying text, you will find the following information:
- Optional Further Reading: These are external links to further reading.
- Featured Images and Animations: Below the text on each video page, you’ll find the featured images and featured animations.
- Interactives: On the 'Interactives' tab on relevent topic pages, you will find a satellite tracking application showing the current location of the satellites, a data viewer from the ESA WEkEO platform, as well as a data viewer, specially created for this course, allowing you to explore a selection of data relevant to the themes and topics in this course. (Please note that due to maintenance, the data viewer is currently unavailable).
Quizzes and comments
- Quizzes: At the end of each week there will be a quizz consisting of around five questions. These will help you consolidate your understanding of new topics, but are not scored. The feedback given with each answer also will also provide you with important information.
Weekly interactive exercises
At the end of each week, we have included a guided exercise, using interactive apps available on other websites, to help you become more familiar with looking at and working with EO datasets. You will be guided through the process of searching for, comparing and drawing conclusions from data relevant to some of the topics covered in that week.
- ESA's CCI: Antarctic Ice sheet
- Increased Ice Losses From Antarctica Detected by CryoSat‐2 - Andrew Shepherd et al.
- Greenland and Antarctica Losing Ice Six Times Faster Than Expected - ESA
- Greenland Ice Loss Much Faster Than Expected - ESA
- Glaciers Lose Nine Trillion Tonnes Of Ice In Half A Century - BBC
- Climate change: Greenland's Ice Faces Melting 'Death Sentence' - BBC
- Greenland's most critical glacier is suddenly gaining ice, but that might not be a good thing - CNN
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