Sources and methods
On February 25, 2009, a broad summary of two years of research by scientists from 60 countries was compiled by Colin Summerhayes (executive director of the Britain-based Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research) as part of the 2007-2008 International Polar Year.
The report showed that glaciers in Antarctica are melting faster and across a much wider area than previously thought, a development that threatens to raise sea levels worldwide and force millions of people to flee low-lying areas, scientists said.
Together, all the glaciers in west Antarctica are losing a total of around 114 billion tons per year because the melting is much greater than the new snowfall.
"That's equivalent to the current mass loss from the whole of the Greenland ice sheet. We didn't realize it was moving that fast" Summerhayes said.
In the past, professor Jonathan Bamber at the University of Bristol and colleagues had arrived at a best estimate of a loss of 83 billion tonnes in 1996.
To put these figures into perspective, 4 billion tons of ice is enough to provide drinking water for the whole UK population for one year.
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