A new Artificial Intelligence model to study glaciers. And to answer the question of how much ice they can contain. About 150 thousand cubic kilometers, equivalent to 32.3 centimeters of average sea level rise, in the case of complete melting of all glaciers (excluding Antarctica and Greenland).
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The study
It was established by a study coordinated by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in collaboration with Cnr-Isp and published in Scientific Data (Nature). It is IceBoost v2.0, a machine learning model developed by Niccolò Maffezzoli, physicist and researcher at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, associated with Cnr-Isp.
7 million measurements
The model, trained with over 7 million measurements, reconstructs the volume and distribution of ice. A web app also allows visual exploration of data from all the glaciers on Earth. The model, Cnr emphasizes, “combines these data with 26 physical and geometric variables (including slope and terrain curvature, ice velocity, temperature).” “In this way – they argue – it reconstructs, point by point, the ice thickness and therefore the volume of each glacier in the Randolph Glacier Inventory, the most up-to-date mapping of existing glaciers, excluding the polar ice caps.”
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150 thousand cubic kilometers
According to the new estimate, the planet’s glaciers contain about 150 thousand cubic kilometers of ice, equivalent to 32.3 centimeters of average sea level rise, in the case of complete melting of all glaciers (excluding Antarctica and Greenland). “The overall figure is in line with the results of previous studies – Cnr emphasizes in a note -. However, IceBoost 2.0 manages to estimate the distribution of each glacier more realistically, being up to 40% more faithful to the measurements obtained in the field.” That’s not all:
“One of the most significant examples concerns the Geikie Plateau, in eastern Greenland, where the glacier is up to 2 kilometers thick – they argue -. In this area, IceBoost v2.0 estimates almost twice the ice compared to what was previously reported.”
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