Reply #33: I think when scientists say "accelerated" they mean from past or known model predictions. [View All]

[joshcryer]

So, for example, with the antarctic acceleration, it was thought that Antarctica was mostly stable, but it turns out to have accelerated past the models that we had built:

A second technology, interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) indicates that over the past decade, glacial mass discharge exceeds model predictions of snow accumulation. By this method, Antarctic ice loss is estimated to have increased 75% from 1996 to 2006, with 19692 Gt lost in 2006 alone4.

From: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo694.html

It obviously took time for us to gather the data, and process it. It's going to be interesting to see what the data tells us in the coming decade.