Berlin, 17 mar (EFE).-the island of Greenland, the largest land and located in the North of the Atlantic Ocean, has lost between 2002 and 2011 a mass of ice equivalent to 240 gigatons, said today the Center for geological studies (GFZ) in Potsdam, near Berlin.
After recalling a gigatonelada equals one billion tonnes, the GFZ stressed that the mass of ice melted in Greenland has brought with it a rise in the level of the waters of 0.7 mm per year.
German technicians stressed that the measurement of the effects of climate change in Greenland has been possible thanks to the Grace mission carried out by satellite twins Tom and Jerry, that ten years orbiting our planet.
These mission Grace (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellites offer “high precision” data that revealed, among other things, an image so far not reached of the gravity of the Earth on the basis of Newton’s law.
Frank Fletchner, scientific of the GFZ, explained that “at the time in which alters the mass of ice in Greenland, change also the attraction of the Earth in this place”.
Tom and Jerry satellites have given far more than 55,000 rounds our planet at an altitude that ranges between 450 and 500 kilometres, collecting data on a permanent basis.
La Mission Grace is a project of the American space agency NASA and the German Centre for aviation and space travel, for which the GFZ performs planning and evaluation of the data collected.
The project is priority aimed at measuring the gravity of the Earth and its temporary alterations with a precision and a monthly regularity.
“Many of the processes of climate events of our planet are accompanied by movements spatially extensive waters that may be checked in the gravitational field”, noted Fletchner.
Finally commented that Tom and Jerry have doubled the time scheduled for its mission and that by Christmas of 2016 will join the project two new satellites to investigate climate change. EFE
