Blue = bad.

Much like male pattern baldness, the ice sheets of Antarctica have followed a relatively predictable march of deterioration. The western edge of the continental ice shelf has crumbled, while the eastern side has remained stable. Or so we thought. Now, just as a dude with receding hairline suddenly finds a bare spot in the back, NASA has discovered that the “stable” side of Antarctica actually isn’t.

Indeed, the East Antarctic ice sheet is losing 57 billion metric tons of ice a year–about 2.2 trillion pounds, or a hell of a lot of piña coladas. Why is this a big deal? First, it’s a complete surprise to the scientists from the University of Texas who studied new satellite data. Second, the eastern sheet contains 90 percent of the earth’s fresh water. Combined with the western side, that’s 189 billion metric tons of calving, melting, and ice loss a year.

“While we are seeing a trend of accelerating ice loss in Antarctica, we had considered East Antarctica to be inviolate,” said Jianli Chen of the university’s Center for Space Research. “But if it is losing mass, as our data indicate, it may be an indication the state of East Antarctica has changed. Since it’s the biggest ice sheet on earth, ice loss there can have a large impact on global sea level rise in the future.”

Translation: “Crap.”

Tagged as: antarctica, climate change, environment, science