Monitoring Melting Ice from Space
The IMBIE Project (Ice Sheet Mass Balance Intercomparison Project) was launched in 2011, led by Professor Andrew Shepherd (Northumbria University) and funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. IMBIE aims to reconcile satellite-based measurements of ice sheet mass balance through community efforts, in order to reduce uncertainties in estimates of Antarctica and Greenland ice loss and constrain projections of future sea level rise. Data produced by the IMBIE Team are widely used by leading organisations, including by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IMBIE Team has produced three assessments during this period, in 2012, 2018 and 2023.
IMBIE’s findings
In their latest assessment the IMBIE Team have combined 50 satellite surveys of Antarctica and Greenland to determine their rate of ice melting. Between 1992 and 2020, Earth’s polar ice sheets lost 7,560 billion tonnes of ice – equivalent to an ice cube that would be 20 kilometres in height. The polar ice sheets have together lost ice in every year of the satellite record, and the seven highest melting years hace occurred in the past decade.
The assessment was made possible thanks to continued cooperation between the space agencies and the scientific community. Over the past few years, ESA and NASA have made a dedicated effort to launch new satellite missions capable of monitoring the polar regions. The IMBIE project has taken advantage of these to produce more regular updates, and, for the first time, it is now possible to chart polar ice sheet losses every year. The assessment will now be updated annually to make sure that the scientific community has the very latest estimates of polar ice losses.
The project’s most recent published findings can be read in Earth System Science Data.
